French Polynesia

What is Polynesia?   We really didn’t know so have been researching.  Polynesia is one of three collections of thousands of islands in the central and south pacific.  (The other two are Melanesia and Micronesia)  Polynesia includes: Hawaii, New Zealand, Easter Island, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Island and the many islands of French Polynesia (Marquesas, Society, Tuamotu Archipelago, Austral Islands, etc.)   According to Wikipedia, “The Polynesian people are considered to be by linguistic, archaeological and human genetic ancestry a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people. Tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan.” 

French Polynesia consists of five groups of Islands.  The Society Islands, the Tuamoto Archipelago, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesas Islands, and the Austral Islands.  This collection of islands is one of the last places on earth to be settled by humans.

French Polynesia is an oversees collectivity of the Republic of France.  French control came in the 1840’s from competition between British and French missionaries which resulted in the two countries claiming ownership and France “winning.”  The French profited from vanilla, copra, cotton and mother of pearl. These islands were strategic during both world wars and in the 1960’s France used two atolls in the Tuamotus as a site for nuclear atmospheric explosions.  Later underground testing continued until 1996 when world pressure finally got the French to cease this testing.

The current population is 276 million with approximately 180 million living on the island of Tahiti.  The capital is Papeete.  The main religion is Christian with the majority belonging to the Maohi Protestant Church.  French is the official language although Tahitian and other Polynesian languages are acceptable.  (We are finding that many also speak some if not very good English.)