Isabela Island

Isabela Island

With an area of 4586 km2 and a length of 100 km, Isabela Island is the largest of the Galápagos Islands. It is larger than the other islands in the chain put together and has a permanent population of just under 2000. The island lies on the equator. Isabela is one of the youngest islands, and it lies on the western end of the archipelago, close to the Galápagos hotspot. About 1 million years old, the seahorse shaped island was created by the fusion of six shield volcanoes, the Alcedo, the Cerro Azul, the Darwin, the Ecuador, the Sierra Negra and the Wolf. With the exception of Ecuador, all of these volcanoes are still active, which makes the island one of the world's most volcanically active places. Two of the volcanoes, Volcan Ecuador and Volcan Wolf, which is the highest point on the island at 1,707 meters, are located directly on the equator. The island is particularly famous for its geology. It offers excellent examples of the geological events that created the Galápagos Islands, such as the uplifts in Urbina Bay and Bolivar Channel, the tuff cones in Tagus Cove, and Pulmace on Alcedo and Sierra Negra, which is one of the world's most active volcanoes. With more wild tortoises than any other island, Isabela has an abundance of bird, animal and marine life like no other. The island's large size and remarkable topography have created obstacles for the slow-moving tortoises, and the animals seem to have been unable to cross lava flows and other barriers, resulting in several different tortoise subspecies. Nowadays, tortoises can be found in the calderas of Alcedo, Wolf, Cerro Azul, Darwin and Sierra Negra.