Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha was uninhabited when the Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha sighted it in 1506. An American, Jonathan Lambert, tried to settle it in 1810–12, declaring it the "Islands of Refreshment", and died soon after. Britain annexed the island in 1816 — partly to forestall any attempt to use it as a base to rescue Napoleon from Saint Helena — and left a garrison. When the garrison withdrew, Corporal William Glass and a few companions stayed and founded the settlement, later joined by shipwreck survivors, a handful of whalers, and women brought from Saint Helena. From them come the seven founding surnames — Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Repetto, Rogers, and Swain — and a deliberately egalitarian community with land held in common.

In the twentieth century the economy came to rest on the crawfish, or rock lobster, fishery. In October 1961 the volcano erupted right beside the settlement, and the entire population was evacuated to England; after two years, most families returned in 1963. An extratropical cyclone in 2001, with winds gusting to about 190 km/h, damaged buildings and killed cattle. In 2020 Tristan declared a Marine Protection Zone over its waters — at the time the fourth largest in the world. In May 2026, after a hantavirus case linked to an outbreak aboard a visiting expedition ship, a British military team parachuted a doctor, a nurse, and oxygen onto the island, and a Royal Navy ship later brought in fresh clinicians.

About 220 people live in the one settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, known simply as "the Settlement". They speak English in a dialect of their own and are Christian, with one Anglican and one Catholic church. All land is held in common, every family farms, and outsiders may not buy land or settle.

The year is structured by communal work: the sheep shearing, the potato planting and lifting, "Ratting Day", and the crawfish season. When the weather allows, a gong sounds early in the morning to announce a "fishing day" and the boats go out. There is one pub, one shop, one school, one doctor, and an Island Council; the ethos is mutual aid, and decisions are made together.

The islanders live by subsistence farming — potatoes above all, grown in the Patches along the island's one road, plus cattle and sheep on the common grazing — and by the commercial crawfish fishery, which is exported frozen as Tristan Rock Lobster and is the main export, alongside the sale of the island's stamps and coins and a little tourism.

The harbour at Calshot is small and often unusable in swell, and supplies come by fishing vessel and the occasional research ship from Cape Town, about six days away.

Potatoes are the staple crop, grown in the Patches. Crawfish, fish, and mutton and beef from the island's cattle and sheep fill out the diet. Canned and imported goods from the shop bridge the gap between ships, and the Albatross Bar is the island's pub.

Getting there is the attraction. The island receives very few visitors, almost all arriving on the fishing and supply vessels from Cape Town or on a rare expedition cruise. On the island, Queen Mary's Peak (2,062 metres) is a hard full-day climb to a crater lake when the weather allows; the 1961 eruption cone sits right at the edge of the Settlement; and the potato Patches, the northern rockhopper penguin and seabird colonies, and the small Thatched House Museum fill a short list.

Weather permitting, boats go to Nightingale and Inaccessible Islands, important seabird breeding grounds; Inaccessible, with far-off Gough Island, makes up a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There is also a nine-hole golf course, a café, and the pub — a complete inventory of the island's diversions.