Geography
France's 'Desolation Islands' are home to more reindeer than people
The Kerguelen Islands, a French sub-Antarctic archipelago in the southern Indian Ocean, sit so far from anywhere that Madagascar, 3,300km away, counts as the nearest inhabited land. Early explorers nicknamed them the Iles de la Desolation for their relentless wind and rain, and no one has lived there permanently — only 50-100 rotating scientists at a time. France released reindeer there in 1956 for hunting, and with almost no predators, their descendants now number in the thousands.