Tongan tongues taught Europe to say “Fiji,” not Viti
Fiji’s Melanesian archipelago of 330-plus islands (about 110 inhabited) lies some 2,000 kilometres north-northeast of New Zealand. Volcanism from ~150 million years ago still steams on Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Austronesians then Melanesians settled from the second millennium BCE; Britain annexed the short-lived kingdom in 1874.
Beyond the 330-odd islands there are more than 500 islets, for a land area of around 18,300 square kilometres, with Ono-i-Lau the most remote group. Viti Levu and Vanua Levu hold about 87 percent of the people. Roughly three-quarters live along Viti Levu's coasts, in Suva, the capital, or in towns such as tourism-driven Nadi and sugar-cane centre Lautoka, while the rugged interior is thinly settled. Viti Levu's hot springs are not volcanic and discharge at about 35 to 60 °C.
Pottery shows Austronesian settlers by at least 3500 to 1000 BC, with Melanesians arriving about a thousand years later. Whether Lapita people or proto-Polynesians came first is uncertain, and some moved on to Samoa, Tonga and even Hawai'i. Moturiki Island shows occupation from at least 600 BC and perhaps 900 BC.
Europeans first came in the seventeenth century. After a short spell as an independent kingdom, Fiji became a British colony in 1874 and remained one until independence as a dominion in 1970. Military rulers declared a republic in 1987 after a series of coups, and Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power in 2006. When the High Court ruled the military government unlawful in 2009, President Ratu Josefa Iloilo scrapped the 1997 constitution and reinstated Bainimarama as interim prime minister.
Forests, minerals and fisheries give it one of the Pacific's stronger economies, and tourism, remittances, bottled water and sugar earn most foreign currency. Islanders called their home Viti, but Tongans said Fisi, and Cook's expedition, which met Fijians in Tonga, spread that version; missionaries wrote Feejee until the late nineteenth century. The Tongans admired Fijian canoes, bark cloth and clubs.
Source: Fiji
