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| Capital (and largest city) |
Port-aux-Français | |||||
| Language | French | |||||
| Religion | Catholicism | |||||
| Demonym | Kerguelean | |||||
| Established | 1 October 1896 | |||||
The Kerguelen Islands (French: Îles Kerguelen) are an archipelago and an overseas province of France. They're a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean, about equidistant from Africa, Australia and Antarctica, which consists of a main island (La Grande Terre) surrounded by a number of small islets. Although not permanently inhabited, other remote French islands in the Indian Ocean (the Crozet Islands and the St. Paul and Amsterdam islands) are administered as parts of Kerguelen.
Originally uninhabited, they were settled over the course of several decades by French sailors and fishers (mainly from Brittany), which used the islands as a basis for fishing and whaling activities. The economy of the colony still relies on these sectors today, but more recently, a strong mining industry has developed. The perceived remoteness and isolation of the islands has led them to become quite famous in popular culture, and they appear in quite a few works of fiction, most famously E. A. Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Coupled with the Kerguelen's uncontaminated nature, this caused the islands to become a quite popular destination for tourists.