Many people don’t realize that there are five inhabited islands.
Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela, Floreana, and Baltra have communities in small towns and a choice of restaurants, hotels cafes, shops and other services.
Baltra, controlled by the government because of the airport and naval base, has a group of residents, all involved with these facilities.
The majority of the present-day inhabitants moved to the islands from the Ecuadorian mainland since the 1950’s.
Legally, only official residents can work in the islands, where the major occupations are tourism, fishing and farming.
The Ecuadorian National Census of 2022 reported the Galápagos population at 28,583. Most residents live in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz.
There is now daily inter-island transportation between population centers.
Currently the majority of non-Ecuadorian tourists choose live-aboard yachts of various sizes for multi-day cruises that reach the more distant islands.
The official language in the Galapagos is Spanish, as it is in the rest of Ecuador.
Most residents involved in the tourism industry speak very good-to-excellent English.
The top-level guides are multilingual, but many of the other crewmembers on the yachts speak only Spanish.
