Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

Portuguese discovery

The Portuguese found Saint Helena uninhabited, with an abundance of trees and freshwater. They imported livestock, fruit trees and vegetables, and built a chapel and one or two houses. Though they formed no permanent settlement, the island became crucially important for the collection of food and as a rendezvous point for homebound voyages from Asia. Englishman Sir Francis Drake very probably located the island on the final lap of his circumnavigation of the world (1577–1580).^[8] Further visits by other English explorers followed, and, once St Helena's location was more widely known, English warships began to lie in wait in the area to attack Portuguese carracks on their way home from India. In developing their Far East trade, the Dutch also began to frequent the island and made a formal claim to it in 1633, but did not settle the isle and by 1651 largely abandoned it in favour of their colony at the Cape of Good Hope.

English and British colonisation

A View of the Town and Island of St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean belonging to the English East India Company (engraving c. 1790).

In 1657, the English East India Company was granted a charter to govern Saint Helena by Oliver Cromwell,^[9] and the following year the Company decided to fortify and colonise the island with planters. The first governor, Captain John Dutton, arrived in 1659, and it is from this date that St Helena claims to be Britain’s second oldest remaining colony, after Bermuda. A fort was completed and a number of houses were built. After the Restoration of the British monarchy in 1660, the East India Company received a Royal Charter giving it the sole right to fortify and colonise the island. The fort was renamed James Fort and the town Jamestown, in honour of the Duke of York and heir apparent, later King James II of England and VII of Scotland.

Gough and Inaccessible Islands were declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995.

The Kingdom of England became part of the new Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and then the United Kingdom in 1801; the British Empire grew into a global great power. The most important and first settled, the island of Saint Helena, had been governed by the East India Company since 1659. It became internationally known as the British government's chosen place of exile of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was detained on the island from October 1815 until his death on 5 May 1821, and it was made a British crown colony in 1834 by the Government of India Act 1833.^[4] Unoccupied Ascension Island was garrisoned by the Royal Navy on 22 October 1815, shortly after which the end of the Age of Sail made its difficult location in the equatorial doldrums less important relative to its strategic importance as a centrally positioned naval coaling station. For similar reasons Tristan da Cunha was annexed as a dependency of the Cape Colony (British South Africa) on 14 August 1816, at the settlement of the Napoleonic wars. For a short period just previously, Tristan da Cunha had been inhabited by a private American expedition who named the territory the Islands of Refreshment.

The political union between these colonies began to take shape on 12 September 1922, when by letters patent Ascension Island became a dependency of Saint Helena. Lightly populated Tristan da Cunha, even today little more than an outpost with a population of less than three hundred, followed suit on 12 January 1938. The three island groups shared this constitutional relationship until 1 September 2009, when the dependencies were raised to equal status with St. Helena and the territory changed its name from "Saint Helena and Dependencies" to "Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha".

World War II and subsequent military presence

During the Battle of the Atlantic of World War II and the following several years of U-boat warfare in the Atlantic, both Saint Helena and Ascension Island were used by the Allies to base patrolling anti-surface-commerce-raider and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) forces against the Axis powers' naval units. Initially long range naval patrol flying boats were used in the effort, and later in the war during the struggle to improve air coverage over the commercially important sea lanes, air strips were built to support land based aircraft which supplied, augmented and complemented the PBY Catalina patrol planes in the vitally important ASW mission.

The United Kingdom and the United States still jointly operate the airfield (RAF Ascension Island) on Ascension, which also serves as a space-based communications, signals intelligence, and navigation nexus and hub (Ground station). One of only four GPS satellite ground antennas is located there.

Climate

Because of the massive distance from north to south (over 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi)), the territory has various climates. Ascension has a warm, arid climate, with temperatures all year long into the 20 °C. St Helena is more moderate (and arid near the coasts). Tristan da Cunha, being closer to the Antarctic Circle, is much cooler and a lot wetter. The uninhabited southernmost Gough Island is wetter and has freezing winter temperatures.

Territorial waters

Tristan da Cunha on 6 February 2013, as seen from the International Space Station.

The territorial waters of the islands extend out to 12 nautical miles (22 km) from their coastal baselines. The Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) extend 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the islands' baselines. Despite their size, the three EEZs do not overlap or touch one another, nor do they reach the EEZs of any other country or territory. The territory has the largest EEZ of any of the British overseas territories (indeed larger than the United Kingdom's) and if included in the ranking of countries by size of EEZ, the territory would be 21st, behind Portugal and ahead of the Philippines. Neither the islands nor their EEZs are the subject of any current international dispute.

An application was made in 2008 by the United Kingdom to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf to extend the limit of the continental shelf claim of Ascension Island beyond 200 nautical miles (370 km). The Commission recommended in 2010 that the limit not be extended beyond the standard limit, based on scientific surveys.^[11]

Administrative divisions

Administratively, the territory is divided into the same three parts as the territory's geography, namely Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. Each is governed by a council. The Governor of the territory presides over the Saint Helena Legislative Council, while he or she is represented by an Administrator on Ascension Island and an Administrator on Tristan da Cunha that preside over these two areas' Island Councils. See Constitution section below.

The island of St Helena is then further divided into eight districts.^[12]

European Union

The territory is an Overseas Country or Territory of the European Union, with limited aspects of European Union membership applied to its administration, its laws and its citizens. It does not however form part of the European Union (the only British overseas territory that does is Gibraltar).

Telecommunications

Sure South Atlantic provide the telecommunications service in the territory. Saint Helena has the international calling code +290 which, since 2006, Tristan da Cunha shares. Telephone numbers are four digits long. Numbers start with 1–9, with 8xxx being reserved for Tristan da Cunha numbers and 2xxx for Jamestown.^[14] Ascension Island has the calling code +247 and also has four-digit numbers on the island.^[15] Ascension Island also held an extensive broadcast facility for international shortwave transmissions to Africa and South America.

Mail

Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha and Saint Helena all issue their own postage stamps, which provide a significant income. The three main islands of the territory each has its own Royal Mail postal code:

• Ascension Island: ASCN 1ZZ
• Saint Helena: STHL 1ZZ
• Tristan da Cunha: TDCU 1ZZ

Maritime transport

Each of the three main islands has a harbour or small port, situated in the islands' chief settlement (Georgetown, Jamestown, and Edinburgh). In addition St. Helena has a 118m long permanent wharf facility, built as part of the airport project, in Rupert's Bay for bulk, containerised and general cargos as well as passenger landings.^[16]

Airports

The airport of Saint Helena

St. Helena Airport received its first scheduled commercial flight on 14 October 2017.^[17] Commercial flights, operated by Airlink, using an Embraer E190, are scheduled from OR Tambo Airport in Johannesburg each Saturday, returning the same day (or Sunday on weekends where the extension to Ascension Island is operating).

Commercial flights between St. Helena and Ascension Island operate on the second Saturday of each month, with the aircraft returning to St. Helena on the Sunday, before continuing on to Johannesburg.^[18]

A military airfield exists on Ascension Island (RAF Ascension Island), though potholes on the runway resulted in the April 2017 cancellation of all but essential personnel/supply flights as well as emergency medical evacuations.^[19][20] Regular RAF flights connected Ascension with RAF Brize Norton in the UK and RAF Mount Pleasant in the Falkland Islands, a transport link called the South Atlantic Air Bridge. The flights are mainly to transport military personnel, though the RAF did allow fare-paying civilians to use them. Ascension Island is also used by the US military (which supply the base using MV Ascension) and was a designated emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle program. The islands of Tristan da Cunha can only be accessed by sea since the lack of an own airport.

Vehicular traffic

Saint Helena has 138 kilometres (86 mi)—118 kilometres (73 mi) paved and 20 kilometres (12 mi) unpaved—of roads. Tristan da Cunha has approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) of paved roads, while Ascension has around 40 kilometres (25 mi) paved.^[21] Each island has its own vehicle registration plate system. Traffic drives on the left in all three parts of the territory, as is the case in the United Kingdom itself. Two of the nearest countries to the islands—South Africa and Namibia—also drive on the left.