Tristan da Cunha is an isolated island in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, about 2,300 km south of St. Helena. The island can only be reached by ship on eight to ten occasions a year. With only about 280 speakers, TdCE is by far the smallest variety of English around the world. TdCE is unusual for a number of other reasons as well. It developed in the 1820s and thus belongs to the youngest L1 varieties of English. Settlers came from Britain, the northeastern US, South Africa and St Helena. There has never been any language contact as the island was uninhabited prior to 1816, and the speech community is entirely anglophone and monolingual. Today, the population is stable and there is practically no out-migration.