inhabiting, inhabited

[Laowai]

Easter Island is the loneliest inhabiting/inhabited place on Earth.

What word would you choose, inhabited or inhabiting, and more importantly, why would you choose that particular word? Both are adjectives.

[5jj]

Inhabited.

People inhabite the island.
The people inhabiting the island in the twelfth century built ... .
The island is inhabited by people who ... .

[Laowai]

Thanks. I wonder if you could elaborate. Some Chinese students wanted to use 'inhabiting'. I said no, but they wanted to know why that was not good. I was a bit flummoxed.

[emsr2d2]

How is "inhabiting" an adjective?

The people inhabiting the island = The people who are inhabiting (present continuous) / The people who inhabit (present simple)

[Laowai]

the inhabiting natives are not friendly
the inhabiting species are dangerous

Between "the" and a noun we normally find adjectives. "inhabiting" may be used as such. The question is: Why would you not like to use it in my sentence?

[emsr2d2]

Sorry, I meant how could it be used as an adjective in "the loneliest inhabiting island"? Your last examples showed that when used like that the adjective is modifying the noun which comes after it ("inhabiting species"), which would mean that "inhabiting island" is the relevant part of the original phrase.

The island is not inhabiting anything. It doesn't live on/in somewhere else.
In your examples, the species are inhabiting something - an area, a country etc. That doesn't apply to islands. An island is not a living thing which can move around so it can't inhabit anywhere. It is where it is and other things inhabit it, making it the thing being "inhabited", not the thing doing the "inhabiting".

[Tdol]

I question the use of loneliest here- remotest would work better IMO.