<P> Easter Island is a special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888 . Administratively, it belongs to the Valparaíso Region, and, more specifically, it is the only commune of the Province Isla de Pascua . According to the 2012 Chilean census, the island has about 5,800 residents, of whom some 60 percent are descendants of the aboriginal Rapa Nui . </P> <P> Easter Island is considered part of Insular Chile . </P> <P> The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday (5 April) in 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island . Roggeveen named it Paasch - Eyland (18th - century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island". </P> <P> The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui ("Big Rapa"), was coined after the slave raids of the early 1860s, and refers to the island's topographic resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands group . However, Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl argued that Rapa was the original name of Easter Island and that Rapa Iti was named by refugees from there . </P>

Why do they call easter island easter island