New Zealand - Cook Islands - The Government Buildings, Rarotonga. - Circa 1910 - Unknown Photographer - Original Newspaper Clipping, published in The New Zealand Graphic #330702 Rarotonga - Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands. - It is thought that the Cook Islands may have been settled between the years 900 - 1200 AD. Early settlements suggest that the settlers were generally great warriors migrating from Tahiti, to the north east of the Cooks. - Spanish ships visited the islands in the 16th century; the first written record of contact between Europeans and the native inhabitants of the Cook Islands came with the sighting of Pukapuka by Spanish sailor Álvaro de Mendaña in 1595 who called it San Bernardo. - Fletcher Christian visited the island in 1789 on HMS Bounty but did not land. Captain Theodore Walker sighted the island in 1813 on the ship Endeavour. The first recorded landing by a European was Captain Philip Goodenough with William Wentworth in 1814 on the schooner Cumberland. - The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga. -