Hao, or
Haorangi, is a large
coral atoll in the central part of the
Tuamotu Archipelago. Because of its shape,
French explorer
Louis Antoine de Bougainville named it
Harp Island.
Hao is located 920 km (575 mi.) to the east of
Tahiti and is 55 km (34.5 mi) in length. The
lagoon is one of the longest in French Polynesia and has only one navigable passage, at
Kaki, on the north end of the atoll.
The chief town is the village of
Otepa, where the main economic activity is the cultivation of
pearls.
History
The first recorded European arriving on Hao was
Pedro Fernández de Quirós in 1606. He was followed by
José Andía y Varela in 1774.
Because of its shape,
French explorer
Louis Antoine de Bougainville named it
Harp Island. In some maps it also appears as
Bow Island.
Hao was the first atoll of the Tuamotus that Russian explorer
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen visited in 1820 on the ships
Vostok and
Mirni.
In the late 1980s, two French intelligence (
DGSE) operatives were briefly confined to the military base on the island after France obtained their release from a
New Zealand prison for sinking the Greenpeace ship,
Rainbow Warrior. Their earlier-than-agreed upon repatriation from the island by the French government became a diplomatic incident between New Zealand and France.
Hao's military airfield, now known as
Hao Airport, was transferred to the civilian authorities in the year 2000. This airport serves many of the smaller eastern...
Read More