Nuku Hiva (old names: Nukahiva, Federal Island (Joseph Ingraham), Baux) is an island of volcanic origin located in the Pacific Ocean. The original name of the island “Te Fenua Enata” means “The Earth of Men”.
Nuku Hiva belongs geographically to the northern group of the Marquesas Islands and politically to French Polynesia. With an area of about 340 km² and 2,660 inhabitants, it is the largest and most populous island of the Marquesas.
The island has both steep, inaccessible stretches of coastline and palm-fringed, sandy bays. The settlements are located in the lush east and south of the island. Nuku Hiva is the setting of the novel Taipi by Herman Melville.
The Second French Republic under the later Napoleon III designated Nuku Hiva as a place for Simple Deportation in a law on political deportations. Several revolutionaries of the June Uprising in 1848 were exiled here with their families in 1850 and 1851.
Source: Natural History and pictures of the mammals by Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zurich, 1824. Drawn by Karl Joseph Brodtmann. Original: Naturgeschichte und Abbildungen der Säugetiere von Heinrich Rudolf Schinz, Zürich, 1824. Gezeichnet von Karl Joseph Brodtmann.
