Tuamotu Archipelago

Tuamotu Archipelago (tämō`t) or Low Archipelago, coral island group (2002 pop. 14,876), South Pacific, part of French Polynesia. They comprise c.80 atolls in a 1,300-mi (2,092-km) chain, with a total land area of c.330 sq mi (850 sq km). Rangiroa is the largest island; Fakarava is the most important commercially. The islands have coconut, pandanus, and breadfruit trees and produce pearl shell and copra. The islands were visited by the Spanish in 1606, came under a French protectorate in 1844, and were annexed by France in 1881. A small part of the group is governed with the Gambier Islands; Makatea Island is under the administration of the Society Islands. The Tuamotu group was formerly called Paumotu, or Dangerous Archipelago, because hundreds of ships have been wrecked on its reefs and atolls. Some islands of the group were used for French nuclear experiments.

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Tuamotu Archipelago

Group of some 80 islands (pop., 2002: 15,973), French Polynesia. The archipelago comprises 75 atolls, one raised coral atoll (Makatea), and innumerable coral reefs, roughly dispersed northwest-southeast as a double chain for more than 900 miles (1,450 km). Europeans visited the islands in the 16th and 17th centuries. France occupied them in 1844 and annexed them in 1880 as a Tahitian dependency. They now form, with the Gambier Islands, an administrative division of French Polynesia. In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition ended on Raroia, one of Tuamotu's many reefs. France has used some uninhabited atolls in the archipelago for nuclear-weapons testing.

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Tuamotu Archipelago

a group of about 80 coral islands in the S Pacific, in French Polynesia. Pop.: 15 973 (2002). Area: 860 sq. km (332 sq. miles)

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Tuamotu Archipelago 

(also Paumotu), an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, in Polynesia; part of French Polynesia. Area, 810 sq km. Population, more than 6,000 (1970). The principal city is Rotoava.

The Tuamotu Archipelago comprises two parallel ridges of low atolls (hence its third name, Low Archipelago) and coral islands and reefs. The southeastern group of the Gambier Islands is frequently included in it. The vast majority of the archipelago’s population is made up of the Tuamotuans, a Polynesian people. Use of the Tahitian language has spread in the islands, and in the northwest Tahitian has replaced the Tuamotuan language entirely. Most Tuamotuans are Catholic, though some are Mormon.

The climate is tropical and humid with an annual precipitation of 1,500 to 2,200 mm. Vegetation is sparse. Screw pines and banyan trees grow on the large islands and shrubs on the small islands. Coconut palms, breadfruit, and bananas are cultivated, and local industries include commercial fishing and pearl fishing.

Tuamotu was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernández de Quiros in 1606. Many of the islands were discovered and described in the early 19th century by the Russian navigators O. E. Kotsebu, F. F. Bellingshausen, and M. P. Lazarev.