Clipperton Island, also known as Clipperton Atoll and previously as Clipperton's Rock, is an 8.9 km2 uninhabited French coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The only French territory in the North Pacific, Clipperton is 10,675 km from Paris, France; 5,400 km from Papeete, French Polynesia; and 1,280 km from Acapulco, Mexico. Clipperton was documented by French merchant-explorers in 1711 and formally claimed as part of the French protectorate of Tahiti in 1858.