San Cristóbal Island

San Cristóbal Island

San Cristóbal Island, Spanish Isla San Cristóbal, also called Chatham Island, one of the easternmost of the Galapagos Islands in the eastern Pacific Ocean. San Cristóbal Island lies approximately 600 miles (965 km) west of mainland Ecuador. It was originally named by English pirates for William Pitt, the Elder, 1st earl of Chatham. With an area of 195 square miles (505 square km), San Cristóbal is the most populated and fertile island of the archipelago. Volcanic in origin, with its highest point 2,940 feet (896 metres), San Cristóbal is the only island of the Galapagos group that has a regular water supply (from rainwater that gathers in broken craters). The settlements of San Cristóbal (the nominal capital of the Galapagos) and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno are located on Naufragio (Wreck) Bay. Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, landed at San Cristóbal in 1835 and compiled data that he later incorporated into his On the Origin of Species (1859). A monument to Darwin was erected in 1935. Formerly a penal colony, Puerto Baquerizo is now an Ecuadoran military base and the export centre for the island’s products, including sugar, coffee, cassava (manioc), cattle, fish, and lime.