[9] The first undisputed landing was made on 7 February 1643 by the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship Heemstede, captained by Claes Gerritsz Bierenbroodspot.

Thouars made botanical collections and reported traces of human habitation, including fireplaces and overgrown gardens, probably left by Dutch explorers in the 17th century.

In September 1786 Alexander Dalrymple, presumably goaded by Bolts's actions, published a pamphlet[13] with an alternative proposal of his own for settlements on Tristan da Cunha, St. Paul and Amsterdam islands in the Southern Ocean.

[15] In consequence, the Admiralty received orders from the government in October 1789 to examine the island as part of a general survey of the South Atlantic and the coasts of southern Africa.

[21] On the fifteenth of July, the snow-clad mountains of Tristan da Cunha appeared, lighted by a brilliant morning-sun, and towering to a height estimated at between nine and ten thousand feet.

[38][self-published source] From December 1937 to March 1938, a Norwegian party made a dedicated scientific expedition to Tristan da Cunha, and sociologist Peter A.

[43] Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen's consort, visited the islands in 1957 as part of a world tour on board the royal yacht HMY Britannia.

[44] On 2 January 1954, Tristan da Cunha was visited by the Dutch ship Willem Ruys, a passenger-cargo liner,[45] carrying science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, his wife Ginny and other passengers.

Biographer William H. Patterson Jr. in his two volume Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue with his Century, wrote that lack of "cultural context" made it "nearly impossible to converse" with the islanders, "a stark contrast with the way they had managed to chat with strangers" while travelling in South America.

[citation needed] On 10 October 1961, the eruption of a parasitic cone of Queen Mary's Peak, very close to Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, forced evacuation of all 264 people.

The highest point is the summit of a volcano called Queen Mary's Peak at an elevation of 2,062 metres (6,765 ft), high enough to develop snow cover in winter.

The archipelago has a Cfb, wet oceanic climate, under the Köppen system, with mild temperatures and very limited sunshine but consistent moderate-to-heavy rainfall due to the persistent westerly winds.

[80] The islands of Tristan da Cunha have a high significance of global biodiversity: two of them, Gough and Inaccessible, form a UNESCO natural World Heritage Site.

[citation needed] In order to prevent the growth of the invasive mice population and extinction of the Albatross bird species, a 2019 Gough Island mouse eradication project was announced (Grundy, 2018).

The RSPB and Tristan da Cunha Government have partnered to spread cereal pellets with rodenticide bait across Gough Island, in hopes to eradicate the invasive mice population.

The Marine Protected Area bans mining and fishing (except the local lobster fishery), with enforcement the responsibility of the UK government via satellite surveillance.

Major export industries are the Tristan rock lobster (Jasus) fishery, the sale of the island's postage stamps and coins, and limited tourism.

Tristan da Cunha has no airstrip and is not generally accessible to air travel, though the wider territory is served by Saint Helena Airport[102][103] and RAF Ascension Island.

Three ships, the MV Lance, the MFV Edinburgh, and the SA Agulhas II, regularly service Tristan da Cunha from Cape Town, with typically fewer than a dozen visits a year.

[110] Occasional boats or cruises may include a short visit to the island in their itinerary; but as there is no deep harbour, setting ashore is highly dependent on the maritime conditions.

[112] The ITU has assigned telephone country code +290 for Tristan da Cunha;[113] however, residents have access to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Telecommunications Network, provided by Global Crossing.

[115] Satellite-delivered internet access arrived in Tristan da Cunha in 1998, but its high cost initially made it almost unaffordable for the local population, who primarily used it only to send e‑mail.

While the site is updated from mainland UK,[122] due to slow internet, the photos taken and uploaded from Tristan da Cunha are all in low resolution, which allows online navigation in the territory with acceptable speed.

The administrator is a career civil servant in the Foreign Office, selected by London, who acts as the local head of government and takes advice from the Tristan da Cunha Island Council.

The Roman Catholic population is served by the Mission sui iuris of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, which is administratively a part of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Falkland Islands.

Surgery or facilities for complex childbirth are therefore limited, and emergencies can necessitate communicating with passing fishing vessels so the injured person can be ferried to Cape Town.

[158] The Camogli Healthcare Centre, usually referred to as the hospital, was built and equipped in 2016–2017 to the latest UK National Health Service (NHS) standards and was officially opened on 7 June 2017.

The new hospital was funded by the UK Department for International Development with the intention that the improved facilities would allow more procedures to be performed locally by visiting specialists, and therefore reduce the need for expensive referrals to Cape Town.

[166] Tristan residents Mary Swain and Percy Lavarello were recorded in 1962 whilst evacuated in Calshot, Hampshire, by Maud Karpeles and Peter Kennedy singing traditional songs and discussing the culture of the island, mainly music and dance; the full recording (split between seven tapes and also including other Tristan residents) can be heard on the British Library Sound Archive website.

[167][168][169][170][171][172][173] On these tapes, Mary Swain sings traditional English folk songs learnt from her mother, including seventeenth-century Child Ballads such as "Barbara Allen"[174] and "The Golden Vanity".