Survivor: Marquesas

Survivor: Marquesas
Season 4
Region 1 DVD cover
Presented by	Jeff Probst
No. of days	39
No. of castaways	16
Winner	Vecepia Towery
Runner-up	Neleh Dennis
Location	Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
No. of episodes	13
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	February 28 (2002-02-28) – May 19, 2002 (2002-05-19)
Additional information
Filming dates	November 12 (2001-11-12) – December 20, 2001 (2001-12-20)
Season chronology
← Previous Africa Next → Thailand
List of episodes

Survivor: Marquesas is the fourth season of the American CBS competitive reality television series Survivor. The season filmed from November 12, 2001, to December 20, 2001, and premiered on February 28, 2002. Hosted by Jeff Probst, it featured sixteen new contestants competing for 39 days on the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia.

Promoted as "Survivor's going back to the beach," this installment of the series had originally been planned to be filmed on the Arabian Peninsula in the deserts of Jordan's Wadi Rum. However, less than two months before filming was to begin, as a result of the September 11 attacks and the political situation in the Middle East, this plan was abandoned and production was moved to Nuku Hiva.^[1]

36-year-old office manager Vecepia Towery was named Sole Survivor after defeating 21-year-old college student Neleh Dennis by a jury vote of 4–3, becoming the first African-American contestant to ever win the game. Several changes to the Survivor format were introduced this season, including each tribe beginning the game with no supply of food or water, the ability for a contestant who wins individual immunity to transfer it to another contestant, as well as the controversial "purple rock" tie-breaker, in which, rather than counting votes cast at previous tribal councils, the eliminated contestant is decided by a random draw in the case of a tie vote.