Welcome to Samoa!
Samoa is an island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, part of Polynesia. The country has two main islands, which have narrow coastal plains with volcanic, rocky, rugged mountains in the interior.
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa (Samoan: Malo Saʻoloto Tutoʻatasi o Sāmoa, Samoan: Sāmoa) and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono and Apolima), and several smaller, uninhabited islands, including the Aleipata Islands (Nu'utele, Nu'ulua, Fanuatapu and Namua). Samoa is located 64 kilometres west of American Samoa, 889 kilometres northeast of Tonga (closest foreign country), 1,152 kilometres northeast of Fiji, 483 kilometres east of Wallis and Futuna, 1,151 kilometres southeast of Tuvalu, 519 kilometres south of Tokelau, 4,190 kilometres southwest of Hawaii and 610 kilometres northwest of Niue. The capital city is Apia. The Lapita people discovered and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. They developed a Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.
Samoa is a unitary parliamentary democracy with eleven administrative divisions. The sovereign state is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Western Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976. Because of the Samoans' seafaring skills, pre-20th-century European explorers referred to the entire island group (which includes American Samoa) as the "Navigator Islands." The country was a colony of the German Empire from 1899 to 1915, then came under a joint British and New Zealand colonial administration until 1 January 1962, when it became independent.