Place · island

Easter Island

Also known as Rapa Nui

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is a remote Polynesian island in the south-eastern Pacific, about 3,500 km west of mainland Chile. Settled by Polynesians around 1200 CE, it is famous for the moai, nearly a thousand giant stone statues of ancestors. European contact from 1722, slave raids and disease devastated its people in the 19th century, and Chile annexed the island in 1888.

Easter Island
Image: kallerna · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 2 profiles

Republic of ChileImpactRapa NuiFoundation, Socioeconomy, Military, Governance, Impact, Decline, Summary

Mentioned in 2 state histories

Rapa NuiSocialist Republic of Chile

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Easter Island. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/easter-island
MLA
“Easter Island.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/easter-island. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Easter Island.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/easter-island.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Easter Island’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/easter-island (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻