50 Fun Facts About Fiji

What is the capital city of Fiji?

Suva, on the southeast coast of the largest island, has been the capital since 1877 and is home to the main campus of the University of the South Pacific.

Fiji's archipelago consists of more than how many islands?

330 is the customary count of islands in the Fijian archipelago, scattered across roughly 1.3 million square kilometres of the South Pacific, with the two largest islands holding most of the people.

Roughly what share of Fiji's population lives on its two largest islands?

87% of Fijians live on the two largest islands, with roughly three-quarters on the coasts of the biggest one alone, because the mountainous interiors are thinly settled.

Fiji gained independence from Britain in which year?

The flag was raised on 10 October 1970 after 96 years as a Crown colony.

Fiji became a republic in 1987 following what?

Two military coups, in May and September 1987 and both led by the same lieutenant colonel, toppled the Bavadra government; Fiji was declared a republic that October and left the Commonwealth.

Which commodore seized power in Fiji's 2006 coup and later won elections as prime minister?

Frank Bainimarama, the navy commodore who took power in December 2006, won the 2014 election as leader of FijiFirst with 59.2% of the vote, a result international observers judged credible.

Fiji's national sport is what?

Rugby sevens is the code Fiji has dominated, winning back-to-back Olympic golds and several World Rugby Sevens Series titles; the fifteen-a-side team has reached three World Cup quarter-finals.

Fiji won its first ever Olympic medal, a gold, at which Games?

Rio 2016 brought Fiji's first Olympic medal when its men's team won the inaugural Olympic sevens tournament, beating Great Britain 43-7 in the final; the title was defended in Tokyo.

The traditional Fijian drink yaqona is made from the root of which plant?

Kava, Piper methysticum, a member of the pepper family, has its root pounded, mixed with water and served from a communal tanoa bowl in the yaqona ceremony.

Fiji is the Tongan pronunciation of what native name for the islands?

Viti is the Fijian name; Tongans said 'Fisi', the form Captain Cook picked up when he met Fijians in the Tongan islands, and early missionaries spelled it 'Feejee'.

Which Dutch explorer was the first known European to sight Fiji, in 1643?

Abel Tasman, sailing for the VOC, the Dutch trading company, in search of the Great Southern Continent, sighted Fiji's northern islands in 1643 after calling at Tasmania and New Zealand.

The castaway captain who charted Fiji's main islands in 1789 was fresh from which famous event?

The mutiny on the Bounty in April 1789 left William Bligh adrift in an open launch; he passed between Fiji's two main islands, charting them on the way to Timor, and the strait is named Bligh Water.

Fiji became a British colony in 1874 after which chief made a final offer of cession?

Cakobau, the Bau chief who had ruled a shaky Kingdom of Fiji since 1871, signed the Deed of Cession on 10 October 1874; an earlier offer he made in 1858 had been refused by London.

The 1875-76 measles epidemic killed roughly what share of Fijians?

One-third of the indigenous population, more than 40,000 people, died after the king and his sons brought measles back from an official visit to Sydney in early 1875.

From 1879 to 1916 some 61,000 indentured labourers came to Fiji's sugar fields from where?

India supplied 60,553 indentured girmitiyas between 1879 and 1916 under five-year contracts, the first arriving on the Leonidas in May 1879 to work the sugar plantations.

What is the Fijian name for the ceremonial whale's tooth presented at important occasions?

Tabua, the polished tooth of a sperm whale, is Fiji's most prized ceremonial object, presented at weddings, funerals and to seal agreements or apologies.

Fiji's flag places the shield from its coat of arms on a field of what colour?

Light blue, representing the Pacific Ocean, fills the field of this defaced Blue Ensign, which carries the Union Jack in the canton and the shield from the coat of arms in the fly.

Fiji's currency is what?

The Fijian dollar replaced the Fijian pound in January 1969 at two dollars to the pound; its 2013 banknote and coin series dropped the Queen's portrait for native plants and animals.

The 180° meridian runs through which Fijian island?

Taveuni, Fiji's third-largest island, is crossed by the 180° meridian near Waiyevo, where a marker lets visitors stand with a foot on each side; the International Date Line itself bends east to keep Fiji on one calendar day.

The 2000 film Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, was shot on which Fijian island?

Monuriki, a small uninhabited island in the Mamanuca group off Fiji's west coast, stood in for Chuck Noland's desert island and was later marketed to tourists as 'Cast Away Island'.

Fiji Water says its product comes from an artesian aquifer on which island?

The brand was founded in 1996 by Canadian David Gilmour and is now owned by the American Wonderful Company.

Which town on Ovalau was Fiji's first capital until 1877 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013?

Levuka, founded by European traders around 1820 on Ovalau's east coast, was where the Deed of Cession was signed in 1874; the Levuka Historical Port Town became Fiji's first World Heritage Site in 2013.

Fiji lies in which cultural region of Oceania?

Melanesia, the 'black islands' region stretching from New Guinea east to Fiji, is where Fiji sits, though centuries of contact with its Polynesian neighbours to the east shaped its chiefly culture.

Fiji's outlying island of Rotuma has a culture closer to which countries than to the rest of Fiji?

Tonga and Samoa, its Polynesian neighbours, are the cultural kin of Rotuma, a volcanic island about 500 km north of the main group whose people and customs are Polynesian; Rotumans are about 1.2% of Fiji's population.

The 2000 coup led by George Speight toppled Mahendra Chaudhry, who had been Fiji's first what?

Indo-Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry, the first from that community, took office in May 1999 after his Labour Party's election win and was held hostage for 56 days by Speight's gunmen in 2000.

The lieutenant colonel who carried out the 1987 coups and later became prime minister was who?

Sitiveni Rabuka, the lieutenant colonel behind both 1987 coups, won the 1992 election as prime minister and set up the Reeves Commission whose work produced the 1997 constitution; he returned to office in 2022.

Fiji's 2013 constitution requires legislation to be available in English, Fijian and which third language?

English was the sole official language until 1997; Fiji Hindi is compulsory in primary schools.

The Fijian town of Lautoka is dominated by which industry?

Sugar cane has defined Lautoka, nicknamed Sugar City, since its mill opened in 1903 as one of the largest in the southern hemisphere; the Fiji Sugar Corporation is headquartered there.

Fiji's national rugby union team is nicknamed what?

The Flying Fijians, the fifteen-a-side national side, beat Australia 22-15 at the 2023 World Cup, their first win over the Wallabies since 1954.

Iliesa Delana won Fiji's first Paralympic medal, a gold, in which event at London 2012?

High jump gold in the F42 class at London 2012 made Iliesa Delana Fiji's first Paralympic medallist; he was elected to parliament in 2014 and served as an assistant minister for youth and sports.

Corporal Sefanaia Sukanaivalu's posthumous Victoria Cross came for bravery in which 1944 battle?

Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands campaign, was where Sukanaivalu was killed at Mawaraka on 23 June 1944 trying to rescue wounded comrades; he was the only Fijian awarded the Victoria Cross in the Second World War.

Fiji's highest peaks reach about what elevation?

1,324 m is the height of Mount Tomanivi, the extinct volcano in the largest island's northern highlands that is Fiji's highest point; the islands are largely volcanic in origin.

The 2017 census put Fiji's population at roughly how many?

885,000 (884,887 exactly) was the 2017 census count, up from about 837,000 in 2007, with growth kept slow partly by emigration.

Which colonial governor took the 1878 decision to bring in indentured plantation labour?

Arthur Gordon, Fiji's first governor from 1875 to 1880, brought in indentured labour to spare Fijians plantation work and banned the sale of native land to settlers, keeping it in communal ownership.

Fiji's total land area is roughly how large?

18,300 km² is Fiji's approximate land area (18,274 km² in official figures), spread over the islands and more than 500 islets, with the two largest islands accounting for the great bulk of it.

Tongan prince Enele Ma'afu forcibly converted Lakeba's locals to which church after 1848?

Methodist missionaries had reached Lakeba in 1835, and Ma'afu's arrival in 1848 made the Wesleyan church the island's compulsory faith; the Methodist Church became the largest denomination among indigenous Fijians.

Fijian traditional dress adopted from Tonga under missionary pressure is called what?

Sulu, the wraparound cloth worn by men and women, came with Tongan missionary influence in the 1800s; the tailored sulu vakataga became formal dress for Fijian men.

The Fijian fire-walking tradition belongs to the Sawau people of which island?

Beqa, an island off the largest island's south coast, is home to the Sawau people, whose vilavilairevo ceremony of walking across heated stones is Fiji's fire-walking tradition.

The 1867 killing of missionary Thomas Baker by the Kai Colo took place at the headwaters of which river?

Sigatoka's upper valley in the Navosa highlands held Nabutautau, the village where Baker was killed and eaten in July 1867; the Kai Colo of that interior were only subdued in an 1876 campaign.

Fiji's main international airport and tourism hub, on the west of the largest island, is at which town?

Nadi, on the west coast of the largest island, hosts Nadi International Airport, the country's main gateway, and sits beside the Denarau resort island and the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple.

Fiji's gold-mining industry is based at which town?

Vatukoula, in the hills of the largest island's north, has been mined for gold since the Emperor Gold Mine opened there in the 1930s, making the town Fiji's mining centre.

Fiji's Enele Ma'afu built his power base in which island group?

Lau, the eastern island group, was where Ma'afu set himself up from 1848, making Lakeba his seat and in 1869 proclaiming himself Tui Lau, ruler of its Tongan-settled islands.

The 1871 defeat of the Lovoni people of Ovalau by the Bau chief's government led to their being what?

Sold to settlers as plantation labourers at about £6 a head, the surviving Lovoni were scattered across the islands after the Bau king's government defeated them in 1871.

Which Fijian island group was the setting for the 1980 film The Blue Lagoon?

Yasawa's Nanuya Levu island, privately run as the Turtle Island resort, provided the lagoon and beaches for Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins in The Blue Lagoon (1980).

Fiji's 1830s Christian missionaries, such as David Cargill, came from which recently converted places?

Tonga and Tahiti, where Wesleyan and London Missionary Society missions had already taken hold, supplied Fiji's first missionaries; David Cargill and William Cross landed at Lakeba in October 1835 with Tongan converts.

By what grim nickname was Fiji known during colonial times?

The Cannibal Isles was the name sailors gave Fiji in the 1800s after accounts by missionaries such as Thomas Williams, whose 1858 book Fiji and the Fijians described the practice in detail.

Which chief, great-grandson of the king who ceded Fiji, was decorated for French Foreign Legion service?

Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, turned away by the British Army as a non-European, fought with the French Foreign Legion in 1915, was wounded and decorated, and later studied at Oxford before leading Fijian affairs.

Who became Fiji's first Chief Minister when a cabinet system was set up in 1967?

Ratu Kamisese Mara, leader of the Alliance Party, became Chief Minister in 1967 and the first prime minister at independence; his talks with Sidiq Koya of the National Federation Party set up the London conference that fixed the timetable.

In May 2009, Fiji became the first nation ever suspended from which regional body?

The Pacific Islands Forum suspended Fiji in May 2009 after the regime missed its deadline for democratic elections; the Commonwealth followed with a full suspension that September, and the Forum readmitted Fiji in 2014.

Roughly how many of Fiji's islands are permanently inhabited?

About 110 of the islands have permanent residents; the rest are uninhabited reefs, islets and rugged volcanic outcrops too small or dry to support villages.