1.
Vavau, Samoa
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Vavau is a small village on south east end of Upolu island in Samoa. The village is part of Lotofaga Electoral Constituency which is within the political district of Atua. Before the 2009 tsunami, Vavau had a resort which was a popular getaway for locals on weekends and was also visited by overseas tourists. Now Vavau Beach is now deserted, but it is still accessible
2.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
3.
Geography of Tonga
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Located in Oceania, Tonga is an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, directly south of Samoa and about two-thirds of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand. It has 169 islands,36 of them inhabited, are divided into three main groups – Vavau, Haapai, and Tongatapu – and cover an 800-kilometre -long north-south line. The largest island, Tongatapu, on which the city of Nukuʻalofa is located. Geologically the Tongan islands are of two types, most have a limestone formed from uplifted coral formations, others consist of limestone overlaying a volcanic base. The climate is tropical with a warm period, during which the temperatures rise above 32 °C. The temperature increases from 23 to 27 °C, and the rainfall is from 1,700 to 2,970 millimetres as one moves from Tongatapu in the south to the more northerly islands closer to the Equator. The average wettest period is around March with on average 263 mm, the average daily humidity is 80%. Though administratively divided into the three island groups of Tongatapu, Haapai, and Vavau, the Tonga archipelago is actually made of two geologically different parallel chains of islands. The western islands, such as Ata, Fonuafoou, Tofua, Kao, Lataiki, Late, Fonualei, Toku, Niuatoputapu and they were created from the subduction of the western-moving Pacific plate under the Australia-India plate at the Tonga Trench. The Tongan Islands sit on the Australia-India plate just west of the Tonga Trench and these volcanoes are formed when materials in the descending Pacific plate heat and rise to the surface. There is only limited coral reef development on these islands, except for Niuatoputapu, the eastern islands are nonvolcanic and sit above the mostly submerged Tonga ridge that runs parallel to the Tongan Volcanic Arch and the Tongan Trench. Of these islands, only Eua has risen high enough to expose its underlying Eocene volcanic bedrock, also, the andesite/basalt from the volcanoes were initially used as hammerstones, weaving weights, cooking stones, and decorative pebbles for grave decoration. Tafahi island in the far north provided volcanic glass to initial human settlers, in December 2014 and January 2015, a volcanic island 1 km wide by 2 km long was created adjacent to the island of Hunga Haapai 65 kilometers northwest of Nukualofa. The volcanic eruption has built the new island to a height of 100 m composed of ash and large rock fragments
4.
Tonga
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Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands of which 36 are inhabited. The total surface area is about 750 square kilometres scattered over 700,000 square kilometres of the southern Pacific Ocean and it has a population of 103,000 people of whom 70% reside on the main island of Tongatapu. Tonga stretches across approximately 800 kilometres in a north-south line and it is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, Niue to the east, Kermadec to the southwest, and New Caledonia and Vanuatu to the farther west. Tonga became known in the West as the Friendly Islands because of the reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He arrived at the time of the festival, the yearly donation of the First Fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga. According to the writer William Mariner, the wanted to kill Cook during the gathering. From 1900 to 1970, Tonga had British protected state status, the country never relinquished its sovereignty to any foreign power. In many Polynesian languages including Tongan, the word tonga means south, the name of Tonga is cognate to the Hawaiian region of Kona. In Malay, the name of Tonga is also cognate to the word Tenggara, an Austronesian-speaking group linked to the archaeological construct known as the Lapita cultural complex reached and inhabited Tonga around 1500–1000 BCE. Scholars have much debated the exact dates of the settlement of Tonga. Not much is known before European contact because of the lack of a writing system, in the 15th century and again in the 17th, civil war erupted. The Tongan people first encountered Europeans in 1616 when the Dutch vessel Eendracht, captained by Willem Schouten, later came other Dutch explorers, including Jacob Le Maire, and in 1643 Abel Tasman. In 1845, the young warrior, strategist, and orator Tāufaʻāhau united Tonga into a kingdom. He held the title of Tuʻi Kanokupolu, but had been baptised by Methodist missionaries with the name Siaosi in 1831. Tonga became a state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain on 18 May 1900. The treaty posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul, under the protection of Britain, Tonga maintained its sovereignty, and remained the only Pacific nation to retain its monarchical government. The Tongan monarchy follows a succession of hereditary rulers from one family. The 1918 flu pandemic, brought to Tonga by a ship from New Zealand, killed 1,800 Tongans, the Treaty of Friendship and Tongas protection status ended in 1970 under arrangements established by Queen Salote Tupou III prior to her death in 1965
5.
Tongatapu
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Tongatapu is the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga and the location of its capital Nukuʻalofa. Its maximum height is 65 metres, Tongatapu is Tongas centre of government and the seat of its monarchy. Tongatapu, as a commercial and transport hub, has experienced rapid economic development than, as well as attracting many internal migrants from. The island is 257.03 square kilometres and rather flat, the island is covered with thick fertile soil consisting of volcanic ash from neighboring volcanoes. At the steep coast of the south, heights reach an average of 35 metres gradually decreasing towards the north, Tongatapu is highest in elevation around the villages of Fuaamotu and Nakolo with a height of 65 metres. North of the island are small isolated islands and coral reefs which extend up to 7 kilometres from Tongatapus shores. The almost completely closed Fangauta and Fangakakau Lagoons are important breeding grounds for birds, the lagoons were declared a Natural Reserve in 1974 by the government. The island has only but a few sandy beaches because of its raised coastlines apart from the small islands in the north boasting some of the best beaches in Tongatapu. Tongatapu has a cooler climate than the rest of Tonga as it is the southernmost group of islands in the country. Because of this, fruit production is lower in Tongatapu than it is in the islands in the north. Tongatapu is known as having one of the highest concentration of remains in the Pacific. The earliest traces of Lapita pottery found in Tonga was from around 900–850 BCE,300 years after the first settlements in Tonga were established. Archaeologist David Burley discovered the pottery around the Fangauta Lagoon,2,000 kilometres away from the Lapita pottery found at Santa Cruz in the Solomon Islands. Although Tonga was always the seat of the Tongan Empire, but in an area of distances up to 1,000 kilometres, it was often only a symbolic rule. Tongatapu was discovered by Europeans on 20 January 1643 by Abel Janszoon Tasman commanding two ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen commissioned by the Dutch East India Company of Batavia. The expeditions goals were to chart the southern and eastern seas and to find a possible passage through the South Pacific. The expedition set sail from Batavia on 14 August 1642, Tasman named the island t’ Eijlandt Amsterdam, because of its abundance of supplies. This name is no longer used except by historians, resolution, under British sea captain James Cook, stopped here in 1777 and left some cattle for breeding
