Samoa Islands

This article describes the geography of Samoa , the islands of the same name in the Pacific Ocean. For other uses of the name Samoa, see Samoa (disambiguation) .

Samoa Islands
Map of the Samoan Islands (1896)
Waters	Pacific Ocean
Geographical location	14 ° 16 ′  S , 171 ° 12 ′  W Coordinates: 14 ° 16 ′  S , 171 ° 12 ′  W
Number of islands	14 (+ numerous rocks)
Main island	Upolu
Total land area	3028 km²
Residents	260,000 (estimated)
Map of the Samoan Islands

Samoa (also Samoa Islands or Samoa Islands , more rarely the Samoan Islands ) is a group of four larger and some smaller islands within Polynesia . They lie along an approximate east-west axis south of Kiribati , northeast of Fiji and north of New Zealand in the central Pacific Ocean and are part of Oceania .

The larger islands of the group are of volcanic origin and characterized by rugged, densely overgrown mountain slopes. The Matavanu volcano on Savaiʻi Island is active. The smaller islands are formed from coral reefs . Not all islands are inhabited. The highest point of the group is the Silisili volcano on Savaiʻi at around 1,858 m .

history

Jacob Roggeveen named the archipelago in 1722 "Bouman Eylanden" (German: Baumann Islands) after Captain Cornelis Bouman , the commander of his ship Thienhoven . Louis Antoine de Bougainville baptized them in 1768 "îles du Navigateur", a name that appears in German-language publications as "Schifferinseln" or "Navigatorinseln". At times the area was claimed by the German Empire as a colonial area. Politically, the islands have been divided into two national areas since the Samoa Treaty of 1899.

politics

Politically include the Western Isles to 1,962 newly independent State Independent State of Samoa ( Samoan : Malo Sa'oloto Tuto'atasi o Samoa ), who from 1919 to 1962 under by New Zealand perceived League of Nations was management, and Western Samoa was called, with the capital Apia on Upolu . In German, today's name is Independent State of Samoa .

The eastern islands have formed the US American Samoa suburb since 1929 , with the capital being Pago Pago on Tutuila .

Islands of Samoa

Western islands

• Savaiʻi (43,142 inhabitants, as of 2006), more area than all the others put together
• Islands in Apolima Street :
  • Apolima (under 100 inhabitants)
  • Manono (less than 1,000 inhabitants)
  • Nu'ulopa , uninhabited
• Upolu (134,400 inhabitants, as of 2001), more inhabitants than all the others combined
• Aleipata Islands (east of Upolu ), uninhabited
  • Fanuatapu
  • Namua
  • Nu'ulua
  • Nu'utele

Eastern Islands

• Tutuila (55,876 inhabitants, as of 2000)
  • Aunuʻu (476 inhabitants, status: 2000)
• Manua Islands
  • Taʻū (873 inhabitants, as of: 2000)
  • Ofu-Olosega (289 inhabitants, status: 2000) and Olosega (216 inhabitants, status: 2000)
• Rose Atoll also Motu o Manu , nature reserve
• Swains Island , culturally linked to Tokelau

See also

• Conflict over Samoa
• Tropical rainforests of Samoa
• political status of Hawaii as a state of the USA
• German Samoa (on the history of all of Samoa before 1919)

literature

• Erich Kaiser: Contributions to the petrography and geology of the German South Sea Islands. In: Yearbook of the Royal Prussian Geological State Institute and Mining Academy in Berlin for the year 1903. Volume XXIV, Berlin 1907, p. 121. pdf
• James Wightman Davidson: Samoa mo Samoa. The Emergence of the Independent State of Western Samoa. Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1967 (English)

Web links

Commons : Samoa Islands  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Christian Buhlmann, Antje Märke: A German "model colony" - Samoa under the cosmopolitan Wilhelm Solf. (see Wilhelm Solf )