Spanish Archipiélago de Colón
Island group, eastern Pacific Ocean.
A province (pop., 2001: 18,640) of Ecuador, the Galápagos are a group of 19 islands lying on the Equator 600 mi (1,000 km) west of the mainland. Their total land area of 3,093 sq mi (8,010 sq km) is scattered over 23,000 sq mi (59,500 sq km) of ocean. Visited by the Spanish in 1535, they were unclaimed when Ecuador took official possession of them in 1832. They became internationally famous after being visited in 1835 by British naturalist galápago ), contributed to his ideas on natural selection. Ecuador made the Galápagos a wildlife sanctuary in 1935 and a national park in 1968; in 1978 they were designated a UNESCO {{link=World Heritage site">World Heritage site .