Falkland Islands

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Updates: 

Risto Nykänen pointed out that the Falklands are on permanent UTC-3 time now. They have not observed daylight saving time since 2010, or, if you prefer to look at it this way, they went on DST in September 2010 and never came off.

I've updated the population figure to the 2012 census, and added a population history. Data come from source [1], which I was referred to by Sorin Cosoveanu.

Country overview: 

Short nameFALKLAND ISLANDS
ISO codeFK
FIPS codeFK
LanguageEnglish (en)
Time zone-3
CapitalStanley

 

The Falkland Islands have been a British colony throughout the 20th century. The relationship between the Falkland Islands and other British possessions in the area has varied. From 1908 to 1962, Falkland Islands Dependencies consisted of South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands, the South Shetland Islands, the Antarctic Peninsula, and the Palmer Archipelago. On 1962-03-03, the United Kingdom formed a new colony called British Antarctic Territory, incorporating that part of the territories south of the parallel of 60° South. Since the Antarctic Treaty had already been ratified, the British Antarctic Territory should be considered part of the Antarctica listing at that point. Under a new constitution which took effect on 1985-10-03, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands are no longer a dependency of the Falkland Islands. FIPS reflected this change by creating a new country entry and code for South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and also by changing the code for Falkland Islands from FA to the present FK.

Argentina, which calls them the Islas Malvinas, has claimed them since the 19th century. It asserted its claim by invasion in 1982, but was defeated. If Argentina's claim were accepted, the islands would be part of the territory of Tierra del Fuego.

Other names of country: 

  1. Dutch: Falklandeilanden
  2. French: Îles fp Falkland, Îles fp Malouines
  3. German: Falklandinseln, Malwinen
  4. Icelandic: Falklandseyjar
  5. Italian: Isole Falkland, Isole Malvine
  6. Norwegian: Falklandsøyene
  7. Portuguese: Ilhas fp Malvinas fp
  8. Russian: Фолклендские острова
  9. Spanish: Islas fp Malvinas, Islas fp Falkland
  10. Swedish: Falklandsöarna
  11. Turkish: Falkland adaları

Origin of name: 

after Falkland Sound (between East and West Falkland), which was named in 1690 for Viscount Lucius Cary Falkland, treasurer of British Navy. 18th-century seal hunters called them "Îles Malouines" after their home port, Saint-Malo.

Primary subdivisions: 

Falkland Islands has no known administrative divisions.

DivisionHASCPopulationArea(km.²)Area(mi.²)
Falkland IslandsFK.FK2,84012,2004,700

Postal codes: 

According to address expert Graham Rhind , the postal code for Falkland Islands in the U.K. system is FIQQ 1ZZ.

Territorial extent: 

Falkland Islands includes the main islands of East Falkland and West Falkland, and a number of nearby smaller islands, of which the farthest out are Beauchêne Island and the Jason Islands.

The UN LOCODE page  for Falkland Islands lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Population history:

YearPopulation
1871811
18811,510
18911,789
19012,043
19112,272
19212,094
19312,392
19462,239
19532,230
19622,172
19721,957
19801,813
19861,916
19912,091
19962,564
2001-04-072,913
2006-10-082,955
2012-04-152,840

Sources: 

  1. [1] Falkland Islands Census 2012: Statistics & Data Tables , Falkland Islands Government Policy Unit (retrieved 2013-10-04).
  2. [2] The falklands.info website had data from censuses up to 2001 (http://www.falklands.info/background/census2001t.html, dead link, retrieved 2010-07-03). It agreed with source [1]. However, other official sources sometimes give different figures. The variation is probably due to counting or not counting temporarily absent residents.
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