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- This article discusses the Hawaiian island known as Necker Island. There is also a Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands that is owned by Sir Richard Branson.
Necker Island (Hawaiian: Mokumanamana) is a small island in the Pacific Ocean, 13 km (8 miles) north of the Tropic of Cancer, located at . It is part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, located 690 km (430 miles) northwest of Honolulu, and is part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge within the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument.
Necker Island is between 41 to 45 acres (170,000 to 180,000 m²) and is rocky with steep sides and very little soil. Its highest elevation is 84 m (277 ft).
Few signs of long-term human habitation have been found. However, the island contains 33 stone shrines and stone artifacts much like those found in the main Hawaiian Islands. Because of this, many anthropologists believe that the island was a ceremonial and religious site. Visits to the island are said to have started a few hundred years after the main Hawaiian Islands were inhabited, and ended a few hundred years before European contact. French explorer Jean-François de La Pérouse was the first European to visit the island, in 1786. The island is named after Jacques Necker.
Because of the island's usage by Native Hawaiians as a ceremonial and religious site in Ancient Hawaii, the island was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
External links
Sources
- "Necker Island." The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. Columbia University Press: 2000. *
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands | Registered Historic Places in Hawaii
"Necker Island"