Talk:Juan Fernández Islands

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About Juan Fernandez nationality please see the Chilean Government site: http://www.gobiernodechile.cl/canal_regional/detalle.asp?veregion=5 (5th paragraph from the bottom)

or other Chilean sites such as: http://www.mav.cl/robinson/juanfernandez/historia.htm http://www.endemica.com/hhist.html http://www.gochile.cl/spa/Tour/Tours-Juan-Fernandez.asp

Somebody had invented something about a so called Joao Fernandes working for the Spanish crown and a weird history about switching names from Portuguese to Spanish and so… This is absolutely fake, and also the date when Juan Fernández arrived the islands. Juan Fernández was born in Seville, Spain, and was working for his own country. I have corrected the error.

[edit] Contradictions

There appears to be a contradiction in the size of the islnads. In the introduction, "The islands have an area of 181 km², of which 93 km² are taken up by Robinson Crusoe (together with Santa Clara), and 33 km² by Alexander Selkirk."

In the Geology section, "Alexander Selkirk is the largest of the islands, at 50 km²; its highest peak is Los Innocentes at 1319 meters. Robinson Crusoe is 48 km², and the highest peak, El Yunque, is 916 meters. Santa Clara is 2.2 km², and reaches 350 meters."

There is a difference of 17 sqkm between the quotes. The first quote indicates that Crusoe is most likely the largest (based on the maps), but the second quote belies that.

What is correct?

I have the same question. Does anybody know something about that ? If we check the history, we can see that in September 2005 the area was 126 km². Thank you. Duloup 13:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Penal colony

I read something about these islands being used as a prison, until about 1930, in Boudewijn Buch - Eenzaam, Eilanden 2(1992) Translation from Dutch:

"Isla Robinson Crusoe and Isla Alejandro Selkirk were almost exclusively inhabited by strangers and prisoners, from their discovery until far in the twentieth century. If one was not already mad when going there, most would get insane anyway because the islands had been put to use as prisons by the Chilenes and Spanish for two centuries. Prisoners -not rarely in the 19th century half of the Chilenish intelligence was stuck on the islands- lived there under the most cruel circumstances until 1930. Isla Robinson Crusoe is one of the most forgotten 'concentration camps' (Cited), also to be called 'Devil's Islands' in the prison history of the world."

It's interesting to me. I'd be happy to add it if I knew a little more.Inks002 (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)