The Kerguelen are a group of Islands. There is a major Island surrounded by approximately 400 smaller islands and numerous peninsulas. Its geographical position: Indic ocean, around 49° S and 69°E. Distances: Australia-Kerguelen: 4800km, Kerguelen- South Africa: 5000km.

The area covered by the islands is approximately 7215 km2. That is more or less the area of the biggest Swiss canton Grison.
The coastline of the islands is incredibly long. The area of 7215km2 is encircled by over 2800km coastline. May be this is the biggest coastline to area ratio on this planet.
The Kerguelen can only be reached by boat, not a single airplane landed there since the beginning of time. One could call this group of island the "end of the world". Today, the islands are almost free of civilization, with the exception of a small village full of scientists called Port-aux-Français. The number of inhabitants is volatile, depending on season around 80 researcher especially from France live in Port-aux-Français. France is the number one nationality on the Kerguelen Islands. This is no surprise, since the Kerguelen are a part of the TAAF (Territoire des Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises) and therefore a part of France.

My fascination concerning the Kerguelen began as so many things with a map of this extraordinary place. Konrad Weber was again an important trigger. It was him who was able to get a map at the Institut géographique national (IGN), scale: 1:200'000. We were completely fascinated by the landscape and we are convinced that is only a question of time until we get the chance to go there.
Next we got several other map in the scale 1:100'000 and even a airplane or satellite map of the region around Port-aux-Français.

Not just the map of the Kerguelen is fascinating but several other points:

* the special climate conditions
* the exciting geology
* the discovery and history
* the fauna and flora
* the wonderful impressions

I wish you a lot of fun in discovering the unknown sides of the Kerguelen Islands!

Information of every kind concerning the Kerguelen islands can be found on the beautiful Kerguelen link site by Michael Kracke: www.kerguelen.de. A must for all Kerguelen enthusiasts.

There are several good books dedicated to the TAAF islands (e.g. "Les iles australes françaises by Gracie Delépine). However, most of them are only available in French. There is a book completely dedicated to the Kerguelen Islands which is in three languages: English, French and German. It is some kind of illustrated book, but contains a lot of information on the history, geology, climate and weather such as fauna and flora. It was published by the Birkenhalde Verlag Winterthur (Switzerland) in 1998 under the title:

Kerguelen
Autors: Max Schmid and André Giret
ISBN: 3-905172-17-8