Isle of Pines (New Caledonia)

The Isle of Pines (French: Île des Pins, pronounced [il de pɛ̃]; name in Kanak language Kwênyii: Kunyié) is an island in the Pacific Ocean, in the archipelago of New Caledonia, an overseas collectivity of France.

The Isle of Pines is nicknamed l'île la plus proche du paradis ("the closest island to Paradise").

At the cemetery Cimetière des Déportés near Ouro is a pyramid-shaped memorial and the graves of 300 deportees who died between 1872 and 1880.

Scattered across the central plateau of the island lie more than 300[2] poorly understood mounds, some of which have been excavated and found to have concrete cores.

[2][3] No human remains or man-made objects have been found in the mounds;[2] one snail shell embedded in excavated concrete was carbon-dated to 12,900 ± 450 years old.

Upi Bay, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia
1890 map