Basic geography of Cook Islands
Cook Islands consits of 15 main islands, many of these are atolls and within each atoll there can actually be several islands but is counted as one island and the rest is islets or motus as called in Cook Island Maori.
Cook Islands is sort of divided into 2 groups. Many times you will hear expresions like Southern Cook Islands and Nothern Cook Islands. This is not 2 seperate countries but the distance from the most northern of the islands in the south to the most southern island in the north is so large it is talked about the northern and southern group.
The southern group consists of Aitutaki, Atiu, Mangaia, Manuae, Mauke, Mitiaro, Palmeston, Rarotonga (main island) and Takutea.
The northern group consists of Manihiki, Nassau, Penhryn, Pukapuka, Rakahanga and Suwarrow.
The main poulation lives in the southern group and the island with largest population is on the island Rarotonga which is considered the main island.
The largest distance between the islands is between Mangaia in the south to Pukapuka in the north. A whole of 1470 Km in between.
The total area of Cook Islands is approx 2 Million Km² but the actual land size is about only 240 Km²
Population
*According to 2006 census.
Total population 19.342 Whereoff 9.816 males and 9.526 females
On census night. Shows 4001 of these where visitors, mainly tourists.
Resident population 15.324 Whereoff 7.822 males and 7502 females
Populations per islands (includes visitors/toursists)
Southern group:
Aitutaki 2,235
Atiu 570
Mangaia 640
Manuae 0
Mauke 391
Mitiaro 219
Palmeston 63
Rarotonga 13,890
Takutea 0
Northern group:
Manihiki 356
Nassau 75
Penhryn 255
Pukapuka 507
Rakahanga 141
Suwarrow 0
Poulation density/Km² 82 (Rarotonga 207)
Unemployment rate Approx 6,9%
School enrollment rate 97,4%
Life expectancy at birth: 69,5 years for males & 76,2 years for females
Average age at 1st marriage 31,7 years for males & 31,4 years for females
Religion:
* from 2006 census.
Cook Islands Christian Church 52,6%
Roman Catholic 16,9%
Seven day adventist 7,5%
Church of Latter day saints (Mormon) 3,7%
Assembly of God 3,6%
Jehovas Witness 2,1%
Apostolic church 2,0%
Other 5,1%
No Religion 3,8%
Refuse to answer 2,5%
Note that "other" is not divided, among here are alot of small Christian varieties of Christianity like Baptism, Pentacostal etc etc and other religions that is non-Christian like Wicca, Bahai, Buddhism and ingenious religion of the Maori.
I do not know why they listed all Christian religions and did not divide up the others but visiting Cook Islands I found there were very many forms of churches and only on Aititaki I think I could count more then 20 different kinds.
Jehovas Witness is listed above although not really a Christian religion but it may be so that they only wrote out the religions that were reaching 1 or 2%.