ABSTRACT
Around 3000 years ago, the Lapita people from Southeast Asia migrated west via the Malay peninsula and the remote islands of the East Indies to settle in the scattered and pristine islands of the South Pacific. In 1845, the scattered and pristine islands of western Polynesia became united as the Kingdom of Tonga, and 30 years later officially became a constitutional monarchy and British Protectorate. The first King of this united Tonga was George Tupou I, and the modern Kingdom of Tonga is the only Pacific Island nation never to lose its indigenous governance or to be colonized. Old survey records indicated that surveying and mapping in Tonga began somewhere around in the early years of the 1900s onwards. Up until 1927, at least three to four expatriate surveyors from Australia and New Zealand, assisted by only few locally trained field surveyors were consistently employed by the Tonga Government to carry out the required survey works.
