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Clipperton Island Quepos Beach, Costa Rica Photographic Print Buy at AllPosters.com Clipperton Island, a tiny, reef-fringed atoll 500 miles west of Costa Rica and 670 miles southwest of Acapulco on the Pacific coast of Mexico, has attracted a surprising amount of international attention. The total land surface of 3.1 square miles consists of a circular sandy beach enclosing a lagoon about two miles in diameter with a maximum depth of several hundred feet. The beach varies from a few feet to about a quarter of a mile in width. As the maximum height of the beach is only 15 feet, waves break across the island during severe storms. On the southeastern edge of the island rises a jagged rock 62 feet high, known as Clipperton Rock, and there are five small islets in the lagoon, called "The Eggs." Some years ago there were two connections between the sea and the lagoon, but they have been filled in. The vegetation consists of a few palm trees and some low, spiny plants. At one time there were small deposits of guano, but in 1933 a French expedition failed to find any. The island is at present uninhabited, but a few people could probably exist there by catching rain water, fishing, and gathering birds' eggs. Reputedly discovered by Cortez in 1523, Clipperton was formally claimed for France on November 17, 1858. A party of Americans in search of guano occupied it in 1897, and France protested. When the Americans were withdrawn, a Mexican party of thirty men and women were left on the island. Apparently they were forgotten, and thirty years later only two women and a man were found alive. The dispute over the ownership of the island was submitted to the King of Italy in 1908 for arbitration, and in 1931 the decision was finally rendered in favor of France. Clipperton cannot be used as a harbor because the outlying reefs are dangerous for ships to approach and there is no protection from storms. The central lagoon might conceivably be used by sea planes, although The Eggs would constitute a handicap. The only possible military value of Clipperton would be as a storage base for raiders of the shipping lanes between Australia and Hawaii and the Panama Canal. An emergency landing field might possibly be constructed there. Home