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Falkland Islands

Motto: "Desire the right"
Anthem: "God Save the Queen"


Capital
(and largest city) Stanley
51°42′S, 57°51′W
Official languages English
Government British Overseas Territory
- Head of state Queen Elizabeth II
- Governor Alan Huckle
- Chief Executive Michael Blanch (interim),
Tim Thorogood (assumes office in January 2008)[1]
British overseas territory
- Liberation Day 14 June 1982
Area
- Total 12,173 km² (162nd)
4,700 sq mi
- Water (%) 0
Population
- July 2005 estimate 3,060 (226th)
- Density 0.25/km² (229th)
0.65/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2005 estimate
- Total $75 million (223th)
- Per capita $25,000 (2002 estimate) (not ranked)
HDI (n/a) n/a (n/a) (n/a)
Currency Falkland pound1 (FKP)
Time zone (UTC-4)
- Summer (DST) (UTC-3)
Internet TLD .fk
Calling code +500
1Fixed to the Pound Sterling (GBP).
The Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas[2]) are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located 300 miles (483 km) from the coast of Argentina, 671 miles (1,080 km) west of the Shag Rocks (South Georgia), and 584 miles (940 km) north of Antarctica (Elephant Island). They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, together with 776 smaller islands.[3] Stanley, on East Falkland, is the capital city. The islands are a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, but have been the subject of a claim to sovereignty by Argentina since the British invasion of 1833.[4]

In pursuit of this claim in 1982, the islands were invaded by Argentina, precipitating the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, which resulted in the defeat and withdrawal of Argentine forces. Since the war there has been strong economic growth in both fisheries and tourism. The inhabitants of the islands are British citizens (since a 1983 Act) and under Argentine Law are eligible for Argentine citizenship.[5] Many trace their origins on the islands to early 19th-century Scottish immigration. The islands' residents reject the Argentine sovereignty claim.[6]

Name
See also: List of Falkland Islands placenames
The islands are referred to in the English language as "[The] Falkland Islands". This name dates from an expedition led by John Strong in 1690, who named the islands after his patron, Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland. The Spanish name for the islands, "Islas Malvinas", is derived from the French name "Îles Malouines", bestowed in 1764 by Louis Antoine de Bougainville, after the mariners and fishermen from the Breton port of Saint-Malo who became the island's first known human settlers.

The ISO designation is "Falkland Islands (Malvinas)".

Due to the ongoing sovereignty dispute, the use of many Spanish names is considered offensive in the Falkland Islands, particularly those associated with the 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands.[7] General Sir Jeremy Moore would not allow the use of Islas Malvinas in the surrender document, dismissing it as a propaganda term.[8]

History
Main article: History of the Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands have had a complex history since their discovery, with France, Britain, Spain, and Argentina all claiming possession, and establishing as well as abandoning settlements on the islands. The Falklands Crisis of 1770 was nearly the cause of a war between a Franco-Spanish Alliance and Britain. The Spanish government's claim was continued by Argentina after the latter's independence in 1816 and the independence war in 1817. The United Kingdom took control of the islands by force with the 1833 invasion of the Falkland Islands following the destruction of the Argentine settlement at Puerto Luis by the American sloop USS Lexington (28 December 1831). Argentina has continued to claim sovereignty over the islands, and the dispute was used by the military junta as a reason to invade and briefly occupy the islands before being defeated in the two-month-long Falklands War in 1982 by a United Kingdom task force which returned the islands to British control.

The islands were uninhabited when they were first discovered by European explorers. There is disputed evidence of prior settlement by humans, based on:

The existence of the Falkland Island fox, or Warrah (now extinct). It is thought that humans brought it to the islands, but it may have reached the islands via a land bridge when the sea level was much lower during the last ice age.
A scattering of undated artefacts including arrowheads and the remains of a canoe.
The first European explorer to sight the islands is widely thought to be Sebald de Weert, a Dutch sailor, in 1600. Although several British and Spanish historians maintain their own explorers discovered the islands earlier, some older maps, particularly Dutch ones, used the name "Sebald Islands", after de Weert.

In January 1690, English sailor John Strong, captain of the Welfare, was heading for Puerto Deseado (in Argentina); but driven off course by contrary winds, he reached the Sebald Islands instead and landed at Bold Cove. He sailed between the two principal islands and called the passage "Falkland Channel" (now Falkland Sound), after Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland (1659–1694), who as Commissioner of the Admiralty had financed the expedition, later becoming First Lord of the Admiralty. From this body of water the island group later took its collective English name.

Upland.
Camp settlement.The first settlement on the Falkland Islands, called Port St. Louis, was founded by the French navigator and military commander Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1764 on Berkeley Sound, in present-day Port Louis, East Falkland.

Unaware of the French presence, in January 1765 British captain John Byron explored and claimed Saunders Island, at the western end of the group, where he named the harbour of Port Egmont, and sailed near other islands, which he also claimed for King George III. A British settlement was built at Port Egmont in 1766. Also in 1766, Spain acquired the French colony, and after assuming effective control in 1767, placed the islands under a governor subordinate to the Buenos Aires colonial administration. Spain attacked Port Egmont, ending the British presence there in 1770. The expulsion of the British settlement brought the two countries to the brink of war, but a peace treaty allowed the British to return in 1771 with neither side relinquishing sovereignty.[9]

As a result of economic pressures resulting from the upcoming American War of Independence, the United Kingdom unilaterally chose to withdraw from many of her overseas settlements in 1774.[10][11] Upon her withdrawal in 1776 the UK left behind a plaque asserting her claims. From then on, Spain alone maintained a settlement ruled from Buenos Aires under the control of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata until 1811. On leaving in 1811, Spain, too, left behind a plaque asserting her claims.

When Argentina declared its independence from Spain in 1816, it laid claim to the islands according to the uti possidetis principle, since they had been under the administrative jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. On 6 November 1820, Colonel David Jewett, raised the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate (Argentina) at Port Louis. Jewett was an American sailor and privateer in the employment of businessman Patrick Lynch to captain his ship, the frigate Heroína. (Lynch had obtained a corsair licence from the Buenos Aires Supreme Director Jose Rondeau.) Jewett had put into the islands the previous month, following a disastrous eight month voyage with most of his crew disabled by scurvy and disease. After resting in the islands and repairing his ship he returned to Buenos Aires.

Occupation began in 1828 with the foundation of a settlement and a penal colony. The settlement was destroyed by United States warships in 1831 after the Argentinian governor of the islands Luis Vernet seized U.S. seal hunting ships during a dispute over fishing rights. They left behind escaped prisoners and pirates. In November 1832, Argentina sent another governor who was killed in a mutiny.

In January 1833, British forces returned and informed the Argentine commander that they intended to assert British sovereignty. The existing settlers were allowed to remain, with an Irish member of Vernet's settlement, William Dickson, appointed as the Islands' governor. Vernet's deputy, Matthew Brisbane, returned later that year and was informed that the British had no objections to the continuation of Vernet's business ventures provided there was no interference with British control.[12][13][14][15]


Road sign to the capital.The Royal Navy built a base at Stanley, and the islands became a strategic point for navigation around Cape Horn. A World War I naval battle, the Battle of Falkland Islands, took place in December 1914, with a British victory over the Germans. During World War II, Stanley served as a Royal Navy station and serviced ships which took part in the Battle of the River Plate.

Sovereignty over the islands became an issue again in the latter half of the 20th century. Argentina, which had never renounced its claim to the islands, saw the creation of the United Nations as an opportunity to present its case before the rest of the world. In 1945, upon signing the UN Charter, Argentina stated that it reserved its right to sovereignty of the islands, as well as its right to recover them. The United Kingdom responded in turn by stating that, as an essential precondition for the fulfilment of UN Resolution 1514,[16] regarding the de-colonisation of all territories still under foreign occupation, the Falklanders first had to vote for the British withdrawal at a referendum to be held on the issue.

Stanley.Talks between British and Argentine foreign missions took place in the 1960s, but failed to come to any meaningful conclusion. A major sticking point in all the negotiations was that the two thousand inhabitants of mainly British descent preferred that the islands remain British territory.

Falkland Islands