Motu One (Society Islands)

Motu One

Native name: Motu One
NASA picture of Motu One Atoll
Geography
Location	15°48′50″S 154°31′30″W / 15.81389°S 154.52500°W / -15.81389; -154.52500
Archipelago	Society Islands
Area	2.829 km2 (1.092 sq mi)
Administration
France
Overseas collectivity	French Polynesia
Demographics
Population	0

Motu One, also known as Bellinghausen, is an atoll in the Leeward group of the Society Islands, in the South Pacific. Motu One is located 550 km northwest from Tahiti and 72 km northeast of Manuae, its closest neighbor.

Motu One's reef encloses totally a lagoon without a pass. All of its sides are covered with low, wooded sandy islands except for its southern side. Motu One means Sand Island in Tahitian, that is a low-lying, sandy islet that cannot sustain permanent human habitation.

History

The name Atoll Bellinghausen or more rarely Bellingshausen was given to this small atoll by Otto von Kotzebue, an officer and navigator of Baltic German descent in the Imperial Russian Navy, in honour of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen. It should not be confused with Bellingshausen Island, part of the South Sandwich Islands, in the southwest Atlantic.

The atoll was visited by the US Exploring Expedition in Sept. 1839.^[1]

Administration

Motu One Atoll is administratively part of the commune (municipality) of Maupiti, itself in the administrative subdivision of the Leeward Islands.

See also

• French Polynesia

References

External links

• (in French) Atoll list
• Oceandots.com at the Wayback Machine (archived December 23, 2010)

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This page was last edited on 22 December 2023, at 17:38