Tristan de Cunha was in the news a couple of weeks ago due to an oil spill, and my man Ted Burke tipped me off to its Wikipedia page.

From the Wikipedia: Tristan de Cunha.

Tristan de Cunha is the name given to both an archipelago in the South Atlantic and the main island of the group, the only one that is inhabited by people. The “big” island of Tristan de Cunha is nearly twice the size of Manhattan and, with roughly 275 residents, has about .02% of Manhattan’s population. Everyone in Tristan de Cunha lives in the largest city, Edinburgh of the South Seas — known locally as “the Settlement.”

The island is the most remote inhabited island in the world. It lies 1,750 miles west of South Africa and 1,510 miles south of Saint Helena, with which it is linked (along with Ascension Island) as part of a British territory. The territory is called “Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan de Cunha,” which is pretty much the least clever you could possibly come up with for it. It used to be known only as “Saint Helena and Dependencies,” but in 2009 someone determined that the 275 people in Tristan de Cunha and the 880 people on Ascension Island deserved equal footing with the 4,255 people on Saint Helena.

Tristan de Cunha is represented by the governor of Saint Helena, which you figure must be something of a logistical nightmare because Tristan de Cunha is really hard to get to. You can only get to and from the island by boat and you pretty much have to boat to South Africa before you go anywhere. One boat trip a year connects Tristan de Cunha with Saint Helena and Ascension.

Of course, it’s probably not too difficult to govern a population that’s roughly the size of a suburban high school, especially when you figure everybody knows everybody and many of them are related. In fact, residents of Tristan de Cunha have only eight last names, seven of which came from its original 15 settlers. The eighth is Patterson, because a woman from the island left and brought back a husband named Patterson. The Settlement has one full-time police officer and one resident doctor.

The islands were discovered and named in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha. Apparently he also wasn’t particularly clever, though I guess it’s hard to fault someone for naming an island group for himself.

The islands pretty much just sat there until 1810, when a guy named Jonathan Lambert from Massachusetts showed up, claimed all the land for himself and renamed the islands “The Islands of Refreshment,” which sounds like something from a Fruitopia commercial. The Wikipedia does not say how Lambert came to Tristan de Cunha or how many people accompanied him, nor does it provide any detail of the boating accident that killed him two years later in 1812.

It is at least a tiny bit suspicious that in that same year, the United States military began using the islands as a base for the War of 1812, which also lacked a clever name. In 1816, the British formally annexed the islands to prevent the French from using them as a base to help Napoleon escape from his exile on Saint Helena, which, as mentioned, is over 1500 miles away. The Wikipedia does not detail how that would have worked, exactly, nor why the most remote inhabited island in the world would be a significant upgrade from exile.

Oh, one of the other islands in the Tristan de Cunha group is called “Inaccessible Island.” The Wikipedia entry contains this gem: “Attempts to colonise Inaccessible Island failed.”

Historically, the island has mostly been used for military stuff. Until at least World War II, its currency was potatoes.

One time a prince visited Tristan de Cunha, and Lewis Carroll’s younger brother lived there for a few years. It is not a great place for celebrity spotting.

It is a good place for bird-watching, farming, lobster fishing and philately. The Wikipedia says that the sale of postage stamps to overseas collectors is one of the main sources of foreign income to Tristan de Cunha.

The smattering of people that live on Tristan de Cunha speak a dialect of English. Because three of the original 15 settlers had asthma, many Tristanians suffer from the disease, much in the same way many Amish have polydactyly. Tristan de Cunha’s flag features a rock lobster, which is also the name of a song by the B-52s.