Vostok Island is an uninhabited coral island in the central Pacific Ocean, part of the Line Islands belonging to Kiribati. Other names for the island include Anne Island, Bostock Island, Leavitts Island, Reaper Island, Wostock Island or Wostok Island. The island was first sighted in 1820 by the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who named the island for his ship Vostok.
Geography, flora and fauna
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Vostok covers a land area of . Its nearest neighbors are Flint Island, south-southeast; Caroline Atoll (renamed Millennium Island), to the east; and Penrhyn, to the west. It is in length, and is triangular-shaped.
Appearance from above
Beaches on the island range between wide, composed of coral sand and rubble. There is no lagoon or fresh water on the island, and no known freshwater lens. Vostok's major portion is covered with a pure stand of Pisonia trees rooted in moist peat soil one meter thick. These trees, with heights of up to , grow so densely that no other plants can grow beneath them.
The island's dense foliage looks dark when viewed from above. This gives the island the appearance of a mysterious black hole when seen on Google Earth which generated speculation in 2021, leading many to believe that the island is being censored from public view. However this conclusion is easily refuted by other mapping services and publicly available images.
Herbs
The herbs Boerhavia repens and Sesuvium portulacastrum round out the known vegetation. Although coconut seedlings were planted on Vostok in 1922 they failed to grow despite being successfully cultivated on the nearby islands of Caroline and Flint.
The island was first sighted in 1820 by the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, who named the island for his ship Vostok (the name means "East" in Russian).
Vostok Island is designated as the Vostok Island Wildlife Sanctuary. In 2014 the Kiribati government announced the establishment of a 12-nautical-mile fishing exclusion zone around each of the southern Line Islands (Caroline, Flint, Vostok, Malden, and Starbuck).
Its isolated nature means it is rarely visited, save by the occasional scientist or yachter.