Gambier Islands - Geography

Geography

Mangareva's enclosing coral reef is broken by only three passages to the open sea. Besides Mangareva, the other notable islands of the group are Akamaru, Angakauitai, Aukena, Kamaka, Kouaku, Makapu, Makaroa, Manui, Mekiro and Taravai. These are, like Mangareva, volcanic in origin. A number of others are actually coral islands, including Papuri, Puaumu, Totengengie and the Tokorua group.

The islands are located at 23°09′S 134°58′W / 23.15°S 134.967°W / -23.15; -134.967., and are approximately 31 km² (12 mi²) in area. The total population in 2006 was 1,103 The primary town is Rikitea, located on Mangareva. The highest point in the Gambiers is Mt. Duff, on Mangareva, rising to 441 m along the island's south coast.

Read more about this topic:  Gambier Islands

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