The Falklands are mostly inhabited by a couple of thousand or so British people with some also coming from St Helena. This does not include the civilians or military personel that are based at Mount Pleasant or any of the other outlying militeary outposts. It has always been British and should always remain British. This is also what the people that live there wish. There are two main islands, East and West Falkland along with over 200 smaller islands making up a total area of around 4700 or so square miles. Main income is from sheep farming and fish/squid catches. There is believed to be large deposits of oil down there although there has not been any extraction as of yet.
They were first sighted by an English Seafarer by the name of Captain John Davis from his ship "Desire". The ships name is incorporated into the Falklands motto "Desire the Right". They were first landed on in 1690 by Captain John Strong. The first British settlement was established in 1766. There were no indigenous people on the Falklands. Throughout both world wars they were used as a staging/refuelling post for the Royal Navy.
I have done three tours of the Falklands while i was in the RAF. It is an amazing place to visit, although i would'nt like to live there permanently. Unfortunately, all of my tours were in their winter. You think we have hard winters. You should try theirs. Severe snowfall, horrendous winds, 60mph with a windchill of -30 on top of a temperature below -15 is not uncommon. One tour while i was down there, we had the strongest winds i have ever witnessed. We lost the radome (big golf ball type thing about 50ft high and the same across) that was housing the radar that night. We never did find a lot of it. It is a hard life down there. There is only one real road and only part of that is tarmac covered. That is the road from Mount Pleasant airbase to Stanley, the main settlement. Most of the others are dirt tracks to the outer settlements. Some places were the people live are just isolated farmhouses in the middle of nowhere. They get their power from their own generators and that's just about their only luxury. The people are friendly and we very often got asked if we could help them fix their generators etc. In return we would get shown around and insisted that we sat down and ate a heary meal with them.
The wildlife is amazing. There are several colonies of different species of penguins, sealions, killer whales, dolphins and porpoises, many, many species of birds including the Upland geese and Cara Cara's (Bird of Prey). The museum is excellent and provides a history of the islands. It really is a fascinating place and if you ever get the chance to go there, take it. You will not be dissapointed.
