Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited island in the world. It lies some 3,000 km from the nearest mainland, standing isolated in the midst of the South Atlantic Ocean about midway between Cape Town, South Africa and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Actually it is the summit of an active volcano rising up from the ocean floor.
First sighted in 1506 and named after a Portuguese sailor, Tristão da Cunha, the first survey of the archipelago was made in 1767. In 1815 the United Kingdom formally annexed the islands to keep the French from using them as a base to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on the nearby island of Saint Helena.
