Geography, Population and Religion

Basic geography of Cook Islands
Cook Islands consits of 15 main islands, many of these are atolls and within each atoll there can actually be several islands but is counted as one island and the rest is islets or motus as called in Cook Island Maori.
Cook Islands is sort of divided into 2 groups. Many times you will hear expresions like Southern Cook Islands and Nothern Cook Islands. This is not 2 seperate countries but the distance from the most northern of the islands in the south to the most southern island in the north is so large it is talked about the northern and southern group.

The southern group consists of Aitutaki, Atiu, Mangaia, Manuae, Mauke, Mitiaro, Palmeston, Rarotonga (main island) and Takutea.

The northern group consists of Manihiki, Nassau, Penhryn, Pukapuka, Rakahanga and Suwarrow.

The main poulation lives in the southern group and the island with largest population is on the island Rarotonga which is considered the main island.

The largest distance between the islands is between Mangaia in the south to Pukapuka in the north. A whole of 1470 Km in between.

The total area of Cook Islands is approx 2 Million Km² but the actual land size is about only 240 Km²


Population
*According to 2006 census.
Total population    19.342        Whereoff  9.816 males and 9.526 females
On census night. Shows 4001 of these where visitors, mainly tourists.

Resident population    15.324        Whereoff  7.822 males and 7502 females

Populations per islands (includes visitors/toursists)
Southern group:
Aitutaki            2,235
Atiu            570
Mangaia        640
Manuae        0
Mauke            391
Mitiaro            219
Palmeston        63
Rarotonga        13,890
Takutea        0

Northern group:
Manihiki        356
Nassau            75
Penhryn        255
Pukapuka        507
Rakahanga        141
Suwarrow        0


Poulation density/Km²          82 (Rarotonga 207)

Unemployment rate        Approx 6,9%

School enrollment rate        97,4%

Life expectancy at birth:    69,5 years for males & 76,2 years for females

Average age at 1st marriage    31,7 years for males & 31,4 years for females

Religion:
* from 2006 census.
Cook Islands Christian Church            52,6%
Roman Catholic                16,9%
Seven day adventist                7,5%
Church of Latter day saints (Mormon)        3,7%
Assembly of God                3,6%
Jehovas Witness                2,1%
Apostolic church                2,0%
Other                        5,1%
No Religion                    3,8%
Refuse to answer                2,5%
Note that "other" is not divided, among here are alot of small Christian varieties of Christianity like Baptism, Pentacostal etc etc and other religions that is non-Christian like Wicca, Bahai, Buddhism and ingenious religion of the Maori.
I do not know why they listed all Christian religions and did not divide up the others but visiting Cook Islands I found there were very many forms of churches and only on Aititaki I think I could count more then 20 different kinds.
Jehovas Witness is listed above although not really a Christian religion but it may be so that they only wrote out the religions that were reaching 1 or 2%.