80 Days: An Exploration Podcast

Audio: Ulaanbataar

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia.  Its modern name means ‘Red Hero’ and it is a city that has had many names including Urga, Örgöö, and Ikh Khuree. Ulaanbaatar was originally founded in 1639 as a nomadic Bhuddist monastery, essentially a moveable city,  and was not permanently settled at its current location in 1778, where it became a crucial trading hub between Russia and China. The city is located in present-day north central Mongolia, around 1000km or 700 miles northwest of Beijing and about 500km or 300 miles south of Irkutsk, Russia. Its current population is around 1.5 million, meaning it contains around 50% of Mongolia’s residents, and is comparable in population to San Diego or Munich. 

At the end of the 17th century, present-day Mongolia became part of the area ruled by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. During the 20th century, Mongolia struggled against strong influences from the Soviet Union and China, until the Mongolian Revolution of 1990 led to the establishment of a multi-party democratic system. In terms of climate, it can be extremely chilly here. The city experiences an annual average temperature of −1.3°C (around −30 Fahrenheit) and temperatures in January are as low as −36 to −40 °C, making it the world’s coldest capital city.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. 

We’ve also just launched a merch store in associated with TeePublic. You can find our store by clicking here, with exclusive discounts at the time of publishing. 

Some useful resources for further reading include:

• Timeline – A Brief History of Mongolia
• A. M. Pozdneyev – Presenting the Results of a Trip Taken in 1892 and 1893 Urga or Da Khuree
• For ancient history and archaeology, check out: “Archaeology of a sacred mountain: mounds, water, mobility, and cosmologies of the Ikh Bogd Uul, Eastern Altai Mountains, Mongolia” by Cecilia dal Zovo; History of Siberian Archaeology; and more on the Noin Ula Burial Site which Mark mentions here.
• On geology, see here

• Wikipedia has a whole article on the beautiful Mongolian script we discussed
• If you couldn’t quite catch the name of the significant religious leader of the Mongols, more information on his various names on Wikipedia: Jebtsundamba Khutuktu
• The New Books Network podcast had a very interesting interview with Uranchimeg Tsultemin the author of “A Monastery on the Move”, which talks about Zanabazaar and his artistic legacy
• Another key source for Mark’s second section was The Bloody White Baron by James Parker.
• Travels Through Mongolia to China (Vol. 1) by Egor Fedorovich Timkowski is on archive.org (1827)
• Also on archive.org is Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet, being a narrative of three years’ travel in eastern high Asia by Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalskii (1876)
• More on brick tea in The Russian Road to China by Lindon Wallace Bates, on archive.org here. (1910)
• InfoMongolia.com
• For a more modern perspective, we referenced The Changing World Of Mongolia’s Nomads by Melvyn C. Goldstein
• More on the assassination of Mr Sanjaasuregiin Zorig, which Joe discussed, can be found here.
• The Guardian also has a great piece on “Mongolia’s New Wealth.”
• See here for a news article about the 9th Bogd Khan receiving Mongolian citizenship
• Check out the Bogd Khan’s Winter Palace, and the Gandan Monastery
• More about the Nadaam festival, and local cuisine
• Music from this episode can be found on YouTube, with traditional Mongolian music, as well as some amazing Mongolian throat singing towards the end.

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

Audio: Paris Catacombs

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Paris, or rather, what lies underneath it — The Paris Catacombs. What began as a network of mines beneath the city which spanned approximately 200 miles or 322 km soon morphed into something much more. A crisis in the 18th Century quite literally shook the foundations of the city, prompting the creation of an ossuary or network of catacombs beneath the city, which would go on to become home to generations of Parisien dead. Throughout the centuries, these catacombs have become a city beneath the city, and have been host to a number of wild and wonderful tales, including revolutions, occupations, secret cinemas and even heists. At this point, I’d normally tell you the population of the place we’re discussing, but we can only approximate for this one, and it’s possibly a record for this podcast — around six million, all of them (as far as we know) dead. 

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. We also feature music in this episode from friend of the show Will Woods. 

Cimetière des Saints-Innocents in around 1550 (via Wikipedia)

• Plenty of additional media, articles and other info is available on the official website of the Catacombs.
• Also check out Erin-Marie Legacey’s invaluable book ‘Making Space for the Dead’ here.
• There’s plenty more that we didn’t discuss on the Cemetary of the Holy Innocents, which can be found here.
• The Independent has an extensive piece on The Stones of Paris, aka Lutetian Limestone.
• Wikipedia has an extensive article on the Danse Macabre, used and discussed in this episode.
• More on Mushrooms? Gastro Obscura has you covered.
• For more on the use of the Catacombs during the resistance, see Nigel Perrin’s full blog post here.
• The Guardian has a full article on the 2017 wine theft we discussed.
• This old tourist brochure from Archive.org has some really great photos and maps.
• A brilliant article in The New Yorker entitled “The Invisible City Beneath Paris” is available here.
• William Fetridge’s “The Rise and Fall of the Paris Commune”, quoted in this episode, can be found in full here.
• The BBC also has a full podcast episode of their own dedicated to the Catacombs.

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

Audio: Gabon

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Gabon, officially the Gabonese Republic, an equatorial country on the west coast of Africa. Originally inhabited by Bantu tribes, the area we now know as Gabon was first explored by Europeans in the 15th Century. Local inhabitants began to sell slaves to Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries, which established the region as a hub for the slave trade. In 1910, Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa, and fifty years later became fully independent. Since then, the politics of the country has been dominated by Omar Bongo, Gabon’s second president, and his son Ali Bongo, who succeeded him in 2009.

Gabon has a total land area of around 257,000 square km or just under 100,000 square miles, making it around the same size as the UK, New Zealand or the US state of Oregon. Gabon is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south. Gabon is home to just over 2.1 million people, with the vast majority of those being in Libreville, the largest city and capital, lying on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea. The official language is French, although many Gabonese people speak various mother tongues according to their ethnic group, of which there are over 40.

Gabon is one of the most prosperous countries on the continent, with the fifth highest GDP per capita in all of Africa, while almost 85% of Gabon is covered by rainforests, 11% of which has been dedicated for national parks.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. 

• Some great examples of ancient ancestral Gabonese art can be found here.
• For more on early history and archaeology, see iExplore.
• You can watch a short documentary on the Punu-Lumbo mask at smarthistory.
• For more on the life of the Dread Pirate Roberts, see here.
• Liz Alden Wily has written an entire book on land rights in Gabon, which you can read in full online.
• Christopher Chamberlain’s paper ‘The Migration of the Fang into Central Gabon during the Nineteenth Century: A New Interpretation’ can be found at JSTOR.
• Gabon : beyond the colonial legacy by James Franklin Barnes can be read for free on archive.org.
• For some more modern history (1960s onwards), see this page at the University of Central Arkansas.

Some music related to Gabon:

• Tsira Etougou Ndong performing an example of mvet music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuUOLEUT7nE
• “On vous connait” performed by Patience Dabeny, the mother of the current president: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XsKk9Aj4MU

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

Audio: Paraguay

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Paraguay, a small South American nation sometimes referred to as the “heart of South America”, bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. One of only two landlocked countries in South America, the other being Bolivia, Paraguay was home to a number of Native Indian groups, most prominently the Guarani, before being colonised by Spanish conquistadores in the early 1500s.

During the 17th century, Paraguay became home to a large number of Jesuit missions, where the native Guaraní people were settled and converted to Christianity. Following independence from Spain in the early 19th century, the country was involved in a number of regional conflicts and subject to the whims of numerous dictatorial governments. This period culminated in the disastrous Paraguayan War, which began in 1864 and resulted in the country losing up to half of its prewar population and up to a third of its territory.  Since colonisation, the Guarani culture, language and traditions have remained integral to the country’s national identity, and the majority of modern day Paraguayans are mestizo, descending from a mix of settlers and Guarani. The country has around seven million inhabitants today, and has a land area of around 400,000 sq km or 150,000 sq miles, comparable in size to Norway and slightly smaller than the US state of California. Despite a history of poverty and political repression, Paraguay often ranks as the “world’s happiest place” based on global polling data.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. 

Some further reading:

• Do your homework if you haven’t already and check out our Uruguay episode from way back in season 2.
• Read more on the Jasuka Venda discovery of human habitation dating to 5,000 years, displaying “footprint style rock art”
• More on the indigenous groups, including the Payaguá (whence the name Paraguay), Guaycurú, M’bayá, Abipón, and Chiriguano.
• Historian Adalberto Lopez has written extensively on this region. His book on the The Revolt of the Comuñeros, 1721–1735 can be found here.
• For more on the life of the Guarani and how their traditions have persisted through to the modern day, check out this video, which Joe mentions toward the end of this episode.
• The trailer for period film The Mission, in all its glory, can be found on YouTube.
• The UNESCO World Heritage website has more on the Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue.
• The Library of Congress also has a wealth of info on Paraguay which can be found here.
• Wikipedia has a whole article dedicated to the unique Paraguayan Flag.
• This fascinating video shows how the Paraguayan War played out day by day using map visualisations.
• Military Wiki also has an extensive article on Francisco Solano Lopez, who is discussed at length in this episode.
• Historian Leslie Bethell has written a paper on the Paraguayan War which can be found here.
• Thomas L Whigham’s book The Paraguayan War: Causes and Early Conduct, quoted in this episode, is also available in its entirety online is here.
• Eliza Lynch has an extensive page over on Wikipedia.
• The two 150th anniversary articles referenced on the impact of the war on Paraguay are available from The Economist and The Guardian.
• The New York Times has an article on the 1887 Nueva Germania colony that Joe speaks about in his second section.
• TIME has a piece on the Nazi outposts in San Bernadino that are discussed in this episode, as does OZY.
• The US Library of Congress has a short paper on Paraguay and WWII.
• Read more on Paraguay’s hydropower capabilities at hydropower.org.
• José Felix Estigarribia, who Mark discusses in this episode, is profiled here at Britannica.
• The graphic below gives an interesting indication of the plurality of languages spoken in Paraguay in the modern day.

• For more on food, check out Culture Trip for 6 Traditional Foods You Have to Try in Paraguay

Some music by composers from in and around this region include:

• Sanapana music from the Gran Chaco tribe, taken from this video.
• The polka song, written in Guarani by Emiliano Fernandez about the Chaco War and performed by Romón Vargas Colman, can be found here.
• We also include some Paraguayan Harp in this episode, which you can find more of here.
• For a selection of music from Augustin Barrios, one of Paraguay’s most famous musicians, click here.

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

We’re (finally) kicking off season five! In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Kaliningrad, formerly Koenigsberg, a city on the Pregolya River, at the head of the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea. This city has a storied history, having been originally established as a Sambian or Old Prussian settlement, before being administered by the State of the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany. Shortly after the second world war, Königsberg and the lands surrounding it were incorporated into the USSR, being renamed Kaliningrad.

City Flag of Kaliningrad

As a major transport hub, the city is home to the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy, and is one of the largest industrial centres in Russia. It is situated within the Kaliningrad Oblast, which is separated by around 400km from the next nearest Russian Oblast, bordered by Poland to the south, Lithuania to the north and east, and the Baltic Sea to the west. It is therefore impossible to travel overland between the Oblast and the rest of Russia without passing through at least two other countries. As of 2010, only a small number of ethnic Germans remain in the city, with most of residents being recent immigrants from other parts of the former Soviet Union. With a population of around 450,000, the city is similar in size to Miami, Florida, or Tallinn, Estonia, and is the 40th largest city in Russia. Kaliningrad and the lands surrounding are home to the world’s largest deposits of amber, with over 90% of the world’s supply.

Flag of Kaliningrad Oblast

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. We also have to give huge thanks to Professor Nicole Eaton of Boston College for her help with this episode, and for giving us a sneak preview of her upcoming book (German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Germany Became Soviet Kaliningrad (Cornell UP, Fall 2022)). 

Some further reading:

• One of the few remaining remnants of Old Prussian culture are the so-called “babas” (or “Old Hags”) which are stone figures up to 2m tall of warriors and priests scattered around Poland. Read more about them on Atlas Obscura.
• Read more on the Sambians and their burial traditions here.
• The 1963 book Balts by Gimbutas, Marija is available on Archive.org
• PrussianHistory.org also contains a Short History of Koenigsberg.
• For more on the Order of the Teutonic Knights, see imperialteutonicorder.com.
• The architectural history and significance of Koenigsberg Cathedral, as well as some excellent archival photographs see here.
• For more of the Battle of Grunwald, which Mark mentions in his section, see here.
• Brandenburg-Prussia, in all it’s glory, can be seen in the map below:

• For more on ‘The Other Prussia’ see Karin Friedrich’s book The Other Prussia: Royal Prussia, Poland and Liberty, 1569-1772
• The Koenigsberg Bridge Problem is outlined in more detail by Brittanica
• More about Immanuel Kant can be read in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• History of Jews in Kaliningrad
• More about bodybuilder Eugene Sandow from the UK’s National History Museum
• Some of the material that Mark shared about the fall of Koenigsberg during World War 2 can be found at the following links: The Economist, WW2Today, “East Prussian Offensive“, Warfare History Network,
• Exclave: Politics, Ideology, and Everyday Life in Königsberg-Kaliningrad, 1928-1948 by Nicole M. Eaton
• “Building a Soviet City” (Wilson Center)
• Information on the “House of Soviets” from Europe Between East and West
• “Should Kant’s home once again be German?” By Stefan Berger in The Guardian
• “The Future of Kaliningrad” by Sander Huisman (European Institute for Security Studies), 2002

Some music by composers from in and around this city include:

• Otto Nicolai Symphony No. 2 in D major
• Pavel Pabst Piano Concerto in E-flat Major
• Hans Tiessen Hamlet Suite Op.30 (1922)

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

Minisode: Christmas Stories

In this festive episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’re inviting you all to join us for a little festive celebration, after what’s been a very hard year for many of you out there. On the menu we have three Christmas stories, as well as a surprise or two, and a short sneak preview of what’s to come in season 5. We really want to take the time to thank our patrons, many of whom joined us in the past 12 months, so we’ll be sprinkling our thanks to them throughout this episode.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Kildare, Ireland. Brand spanking new minisode theme music comes from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. Cover image from Алсу Ягудина on Unsplash.

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

S04E10 Svalbard Audio

https://media.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/content.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/80_Days_Svalbard.mp3

In this episode of 80 Days: an exploration podcast, we’ll be talking about Svalbard (also known as Spitsbergen), a small polar archipelago off the northern coast of Norway. Svalbard is by far the most northerly place we’ve covered on the show, lying roughly midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, around 580 miles (930 km) north of Tromsø, Norway. The archipelago consists of nine main islands, the main island being Spitsbergen, which makes up over half of the land area. In total, Svalbard has a land area of around 24,209 square miles (62,700 square km), making it similar in size to Sri Lanka or the US state of West Virginia. There are only 2,500 permanent residents here, most of whom live in the main city of Longyearbyen. First settled as an arctic whaling base in the 17th century, the islands later saw the establishment of coal mining towns, but in recent years Svalbard’s main economic lifeline has been tourism and arctic research, both of which have boomed recently. Due to its extreme northern latitude, in the summer, the sun does not set on Svalbard for 4 months, while in the winter the archipelago goes weeks without any sunlight at all. Svalbard is also notable for being home to the Global Seed Vault, while as of 2012, all residents must carry a gun while travelling outside an established settlement, in case they encounter one of the many polar bears that live nearby.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Kildare, Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella)

Thanks to Dr Ciaran McDonough (@metamedievalist), Sonja Murto, Aengus Ó Maoláin and Roxana Cremer (@cloudcycling) for talking to us about their first-hand experiences visiting or living in Svalbard. They were invaluable to giving us a full picture of the place.

Some further reading:

Music:

Videos:

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

S04E09 Tierra Del Fuego

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Tierra Del Fuego, an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. Tierra Del Fuego, which translates to Land of Fire, consists of a main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, often called simply Tierra del Fuego or Isla Grande, with an area of 48,100 km2 (18,572 sq mi), and a group of smaller islands. First settled by humans around 8,000 BCE, Ferdinand Magellan was among the first Europeans to explore the islands in 1520, giving them their name. In 1830, a British crew visited the region in HMS Beagle, naming the main channel that runs through the archipelago after the vessel. Widespread displacement and genocide of the native populations took place in the second half of the 19th century, particularly after the discovery of gold in the region in 1879.

https://media.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/content.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/80_Days_TDF.mp3

Map of Tierra Del Fuego (via GeoCurrents)

Following a dispute in 1978, the main island is now split between Argentina and Chile. The eastern part of the main island, and a few small islands in the Beagle Channel (around 39% of the total area) belong to Argentina, while the western part of the main island, and almost all the other islands (61% of the total area) officially belong to Chile. The archipelago is divided by an east–west channel, the Beagle Channel, immediately south of the main island, and in total, the land area of Tierra Del Fuego is roughly equivalent in size to Slovakia or slightly smaller than the US state of West Virginia. The climate here is generally cold and wet, and has been compared to that of the Faroe Islands.

Although the region is split between two nations, total population as a whole is estimated to be around 135,000 (2010), of whom around 125,000 live on the Argentinean side. Tierra Del Fuego is also famous its biodiversity, but since the 1940s, a colony of invasive beavers have been perhaps the most notorious animal resident.

This episode, just like all of our recent ones, is supported by our Patreon backers. If you want to help out the show, you can help out by joining us over on www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast to give us whatever you can in terms of financial support and avail of all the lovely awards and extras that entitles you to. If you’re unable to support us financially, you can always leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from.

Photo by Johan Tavares Franco on Unsplash

This comparison of Tierra Del Fuego’s (Argentine) flag versus its geography was complied by Reddit user u/arg2k.

The map of various border claims in Tierra Del Fuego, via Wikipedia

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella).

Some further reading:

Music that might interest listeners:

SELKNAM (onas)- Cantos Ancestrales

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

S04E08 Nepal Audio

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Nepal, a small, landlocked country in South Asia. Nepal borders China in the north, India in the south, east and west, and Bhutan is separated from it by the Indian state of Sikkim. Home to eight of the world’s ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, this small nation has an expansive and complex history, and was only declared a republic in 2008.

https://content.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/80_Days-Nepal.mp3

Today Nepal is home to over 28 million people, and has a total land area of around 147,000 square kilometres or 56,000 miles, making it roughly the size of Greece, or the US state of New York. Aside from Everest, Nepal is famous for its strong military, exemplified by the Ghurkas, who played an important role in both world wars, as well as one of the world’s most recognisable flags.

This episode, just like all of our recent ones, is supported by our Patreon backers. If you want to help out the show, you can help out by joining us over on www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast to give us whatever you can in terms of financial support and avail of all the lovely awards and extras that entitles you to. If you’re unable to support us financially, you can always leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from.

Parliament house of Nepal, Kathmandu – Sujitabh Chaudhary

Namche Bazaar, Nepal – Sebastian Pena Lambarri

You can find more on the state flag of Ohio, which we discuss in this episode, here on Wikipedia.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella). We’d also like to thank Professor Lamont Lindstrom for his contribution to this episode. You can find more about him here.

Some further reading:

Music that might interest listeners:

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/

S04E06 Vanuatu Audio

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about The Republic of Vanuatu, a Pacific island country located in the South Pacific Ocean, around 1,700 kilometres (or 1,000 miles) east of northern Australia and 540 kilometres (340 miles) northeast of New Caledonia.

http://media.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/content.blubrry.com/80_days_an_exploration/80_Days_Vanuatu.mp3

First inhabited by Melanesian people around 3,000 years ago, parts of the archipelago were settled by British and French colonists in the 1800s, and in 1906 France and the United Kingdom agreed to administer the islands jointly in a unique form of government known as the British-French Condominium. Vanuatu gained its independence in July 1980, and is today home to around 270,000 people.

Only around 65 of the archipelago’s 82 islands are inhabited, and although the country is spread across 12,200 square kilometres (4,700 sq mi) its land surface is very limited to around 4,700 square kilometres or 1,800 sq miles, a similar size to the Falkland Islands or our old friend The Gambia. The indigenous population, called ni-Vanuatu, is overwhelmingly Melanesian, and the main language is a pidgin creole known as Bislama, though English and French are both widely spoken, as are up to 113 indigenous languages. According to The NYT Magazine, “A meaningful national identity has been constructed from a common appreciation of ceremonial pig-tusk bracelets and the taking of kava, a very mild narcotic root that looks like primordial pea soup and tastes like a fine astringent dirt.”

Straddling the seismic strip called the ‘Ring of Fire’, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis have all been relatively commonplace over recent decades, earning Vanuatu the unfortunate distinction of being the world’s most dangerous place when it comes to natural disasters.

This episode, just like all of our recent ones, is supported by our Patreon backers. If you want to help out the show, you can help out by joining us over on www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast to give us whatever you can in terms of financial support and avail of all the lovely awards and extras that entitles you to. If you’re unable to support us financially, you can always leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from.

A panorama of Port Vila, capital and largest city of Vanuatu

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella). We’d also like to thank Professor Lamont Lindstrom for his contribution to this episode. You can find more about him here.

Some further reading:

Music that might interest listeners:

80 Days: An Exploration Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://80dayspodcast.com/