ABSTRACT
The 150 or so islands of Tonga (about 30 are inhabited) are part of Polynesia and lie in the southwest Pacific near where the international Dateline intersects the Tropic of Capricorn. They are scattered between latitudes 15 and 24 degrees south and between longitudes 173 and 175 degrees west. The total land area is 700 square kilometres. The four island groups in Tonga are the southern Tongatapu group (where the capital, Nuku‘alofa, is situated), the central Ha‘apai group, the northern Vava‘u group, and the far northern Niua group. The Tongatapu group is some 650-800 kilometres from Fiji to the northwest and Samoa to the north northeast, 1,770 kilometres from Auckland and 3,220 kilometres from Sydney. Tonga and Samoa are the main island groups of West Polynesia.
