Christmas Island
Travel Blog • Ben Keene • 12.08.06 | 9:00 AM ET
Coordinates: 10 30 S 195 40 E
Area: 60 sq. mi. (155 sq. km)
Maybe if he’d given it more thought, Old Saint Nick would have opened his workshop in a slightly more salubrious location than the North Pole. Somewhere like, say, Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. Very nearly as remote but considerably warmer than Finnish Lapland where he can currently be reached, Christmas Island was so named when a ship owned by the East India Company anchored offshore on Dec. 25, 1643. Granted, the monsoon season might be a slight annoyance and the humidity would require some adjustments to his suit, plus Santa would probably have to trade in his reindeer for a team of red land crabs (roughly 120 million currently reside here), but squeezing in some scuba diving would certainly be easier. At present this small Australian dependency south of Java supports some tourism, limited tropical fruit farming and phosphate mining.
—.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.
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Ian Foster 12.12.06 | 1:24 AM ET
Ahhhhhh,
I remember fondly three wonderful years living and working on Christmas Island. It’s a spectacular place but still quite remote and hard to get to. The local post office received letters from all over the world in December addressed to UnoHoo. You’re right, it’s very hot and heavily humid around Christmas Day and the crabs are still ‘on the move’ as well.
Ian
quanice 12.20.06 | 12:24 PM ET
ok like that.
Gianni Wise 02.26.07 | 8:20 AM ET
yes Chrismas Island is also the home of a unique detention Centre for those unlucky asylum seekers who will never get the opportunity to aply for refugee status. Why? Becuase Chrismas Island is off the north coast of this country and serves as a point where many people arriving by boat are sent home - against the UN Convention