Nearly 1,000 stone giants, one of the most isolated places on Earth
A speck of Polynesia governed by Chile, more than 3,500 km from the South American mainland — home to the moai, the monumental stone statues carved by the Rapa Nui people centuries before European contact.
The Rapa Nui people settled the island roughly 1,000 years ago and carved nearly 900 moai statues between the 13th and 16th centuries, likely to honor ancestors. Contact with Europeans from 1722 onward, followed by 19th-century slave raids and disease, devastated the population; Chile annexed the island in 1888. Rapa Nui culture and language are undergoing an active revival today.