Galápagos Islands

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

There is no firm evidence that Polynesians or the Indigenous peoples of South America reached the islands before their accidental discovery by Bishop Tomás de Berlanga in 1535. If some visitors did arrive, poor access to fresh water on the islands seems to have limited settlement. The Spanish Empire similarly ignored the islands, although during the Golden Age of Piracy, various pirates used the Galápagos as a base to raid Spanish shipping along the Peruvian coast. The goats and black and brown rats introduced during this period greatly damaged the existing ecosystems of several islands. British sailors were chiefly responsible for exploring and mapping the area. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle was part of an extensive British survey of the coasts of South America. Ecuador, which won its independence from Spain in 1822 and left Gran Colombia in 1830, formally occupied and claimed the islands on 12 February 1832 while the voyage was ongoing. José de Villamil, the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy, led the push to colonize and settle the islands, gradually supplanting the English names of the major islands with Spanish ones. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. After World War II, its facilities were transferred to Ecuador. With the growing importance of ecotourism to the local economy, the airport modernized in the 2010s, using recycled materials for any expansion and shifting entirely to renewable energy sources to handle its roughly 300,000 visitors each year.

Reader's Guide

The Galápagos Islands take their name from their native giant tortoises, known in Spanish as 'galápagos' (derived from a pre-Roman Iberian word meaning 'turtle' or 'tortoise'). The name is first attested as the Spanish/Latin hybrid Insulae de los Galopegos ('Islands of the Turtles') on the map of the Americas in Abraham Ortelius's Theater of the Lands of the World, first published in 1570. Early sailors to the islands also dubbed them the 'Enchanted Isles' due to the difficulty in navigating the winds and currents around them. The islands were officially named the Ecuador Archipelago or Archipelago of the Equator following their annexation by Ecuador in 1832. In 1892, upon the quadricentennial of Christopher Columbus's first voyage, they were renamed the Colón or Columbus Archipelago, which remains their official title in Ecuadorian maps and state documents. The islands were mapped by the English buccaneer Ambrose Cowley in 1684 and the British naval officer Captain James Colnett in 1793. Both men named the archipelago's islands after British monarchs, noblemen, and Royal Navy officers. Over time, the English names were gradually replaced by Spanish names after Ecuador annexed the islands in 1832, but the English names remain in use in older sources. The Galápagos islands are located at the Galápagos triple junction. The archipelago is located on the Nazca plate, which is moving east/southeast, diving under the South American plate at a rate of about 2.5 inches per year. It is also atop the Galápagos hotspot, a place where the Earth's crust is being melted from below by a mantle plume, creating volcanoes. The first islands formed here at least 8 million and possibly up to 90 million years ago. The highest point in the islands is Volcán Wolf on Isabela, reaching an altitude of 1,700 meters. While broad shield volcanoes are found in the western islands of Isabela and Fernandina, smaller, more significantly eroded landforms are found in the eastern islands.

Did You Know?

• The Galápagos Islands take their name from the native giant tortoises, known in Spanish as 'galápagos', derived from a pre-Roman Iberian word meaning 'turtle' or 'tortoise'.
• The name is first attested as the Spanish/Latin hybrid 'Insulae de los Galopegos' on Abraham Ortelius's 1570 map.
• Early sailors dubbed the islands the 'Enchanted Isles' due to the difficulty in navigating the winds and currents around them.
• The islands were officially renamed the Colón or Columbus Archipelago in 1892, upon the quadricentennial of Christopher Columbus's first voyage.
• The United States built the islands' first airport in the 1930s as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal.

Gallery