• Population: 18,000
• Time difference: -6 hours GMT
• Language: Spanish

Six hundred miles off the South American mainland, astride the Equator, lie the Galápagos Islands. These islands are in fact the peaks of gigantic submarine volcanoes, and have certainly never been part of the mainland. Over many millennia, animals and plants came to adapt to this special environment, and to develop differently from their continental ancestors.

This adaptation by natural selection is what the naturalist Charles Darwin called evolution. He used the subtle difference in species that he observed from island to island to form the basis of his book 'The Origin of Species'. No large mammals ever reached the islands, so birds and reptiles remained dominant - as they had once dominated the Earth aeons before.

The population of the Galápagos Islands is roughly 18,000 people, mostly migrants from the mainland who live in the two main towns. These are Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal. The two airports are nearby.