Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is far out in the Pacific Ocean.

It belongs to Australia. Its most famous tree is the Norfolk Island pine.

Norfolk Island lies in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, about 1,676 kilometers northeast of Sydney, Australia. It is about 8 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide, with two small islands, Phillip and Nepean, off its southern shore.

Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia, and an administrator is appointed by Australia's governor-general. The main settlement and administrative center is Kingston, in the south. English and Norfuk are spoken, and people pay with the Australian dollar.

Britannica places Norfolk Island in the southwestern Pacific, 1,676 km northeast of Sydney: a volcanic island about 8 km by 5 km, with a mean elevation of 110 m, rising to Mount Bates (319 m) and Mount Pitt (318 m). Phillip Island, a volcanic pinnacle 6 km to the south, and limestone Nepean Island lie off the southern shore.

The island is an external territory of Australia; its administrator is appointed by the Governor-General of Australia. Kingston, in the south, is the main settlement and administrative center. Wikidata lists English and Norfuk as its languages, and the currency is the Australian dollar.

Kingston has old stone buildings with gray roofs.

Green fields lead down to the sea. Tall pine trees stand all around.

Kingston, on the south coast, is the island's main settlement. Its old buildings belong to the Kingston and Arthur's Vale area, a World Heritage site. The photo shows yellow stone buildings with gray roofs behind a high stone wall, green fields, tall Norfolk Island pines and a ship out at sea.

Kingston and Cascade, on the north side, are among the few places where the coast is not lined with cliffs. Mount Bates and Mount Pitt, the highest points, rise in the north, and Phillip Island lies about 6 kilometers to the south.

Kingston, in the south, is the main settlement and administrative center. With Arthur's Vale it forms one of the eleven sites inscribed in 2010 as the Australian Convict Sites, which UNESCO says illustrate both punitive imprisonment and rehabilitation through forced labor. The photo shows stone buildings inside a high stone wall at Kingston, with Norfolk Island pines, green fields and a cargo ship offshore.

Britannica notes that Kingston and the landing place at Cascade, on the north side, are among the few points where the coast is not bound by cliffs. Mount Bates (319 m) and Mount Pitt (318 m) rise in the north, and Phillip Island, part of the national park, lies 6 km to the south.

Norfolk Island was made by volcanoes long ago.

High cliffs rise from the sea. The pine trees grow very, very tall.

Norfolk Island was built by flows of basalt lava, and it rises steeply from the sea, with cliffs more than 90 meters high in places. It has never been joined to any other land. The soil is fertile but washes away easily if the plants are cleared. More than 1,300 millimeters of rain falls in a year.

Before European settlers came, rainforest covered almost all of the island. Today the national park and botanic garden hold most of the natural areas that are left. The Norfolk Island pine can grow 60 meters tall, and around 200 native plants grow on the islands, 46 of them found nowhere else.

Britannica describes horizontal basalt lava flows, mostly overlaid by lateritic soil, rising precipitously from a submarine ridge, with cliffs over 90 m high; the fertile soil erodes easily once stripped of vegetation. Rainfall exceeds 1,300 mm a year. Much of the land has been cleared for crops and pasture, but the Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla) remains a notable feature.

Parks Australia notes that the island has never been joined to a land mass and that the group links tropical and temperate oceanic island environments. Subtropical rainforest once covered almost all of it; the national park and botanic garden now hold most of the remaining natural areas. Of about 200 native plants, 46 are endemic and 15 are critically endangered. The pine grows up to 60 m tall.

A green parrot lives on Norfolk Island and nowhere else.

Thousands of seabirds nest on little Phillip Island.

Around 116 kinds of birds are found on Norfolk Island, many of them found nowhere else in the world. Care programs have brought the green parrot and the Norfolk Island morepork back from the edge of dying out, and their numbers are still growing. Norfolk Island pine seeds are a favorite food of the green parrot.

Every year, thousands of seabirds, such as masked boobies, sooty terns and black noddies, nest on Phillip Island, where there are no predators. Rabbits there were removed in 1986, and the plants have been growing back ever since.

Parks Australia counts around 116 bird species, many endemic. Conservation programs have brought the endemic green parrot and the Norfolk Island morepork back from the brink, and their numbers continue to increase. The island has no endemic mammals; its only native mammals, two bats, are now extinct there. Two native reptiles, the Lord Howe Island gecko and skink, were, fossil evidence suggests, driven from Norfolk itself by rats that arrived with Polynesian sailors, but they survive in large numbers on predator-free Phillip Island.

Phillip Island hosts thousands of breeding migratory seabirds, among them masked boobies, black-winged petrels, sooty terns and black noddies; its vegetation has gradually recovered since feral rabbits were eradicated in 1986. Five land snail species are critically endangered.

Some families on Norfolk Island came from Pitcairn Island long ago.

Many visitors come to walk in the forest and see the old buildings.

In 1856 the people of Pitcairn Island, descendants of the HMS Bounty sailors and their Tahitian companions, moved to Norfolk Island. Some of their descendants still live here, along with families who came later, mostly from Australia and New Zealand.

Since the mid-1960s, tourism has been the island's main way of earning money, Britannica says. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated 2,193 people in June 2025.

Britannica describes a population descended from the Pitcairners resettled in 1856 and from later settlers, mostly from Australia and New Zealand, and a distinctive society blending Polynesian and European heritage. At the 2021 census, 1,345 residents had been born in Australia and 322 in New Zealand.

Tourism has been the major economic activity since the mid-1960s, Britannica says; subsistence farming produces Kentia palm seed, cereals, fruits and vegetables, Norfolk Island pine seed is exported, and grazing and fishing matter locally. The ABS estimated resident population was 2,221 in June 2021 and 2,193 in June 2025.