Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, once deleted a whole day from its calendar. Friday, the 30th of December 2011, never happened there. At the end of that month the island country moved its clocks from UTC-11 to UTC+13. The International Date Line shifted to the east of the territory as a result. Before the switch, Samoa ran 21 hours behind Sydney. Afterward it ran three hours ahead. The aim was to make business with Australia and New Zealand easier. The old time zone, adopted on the 4th of July 1892, had kept the islands in step with American traders based in California.
Samoa lies in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Apia. Who first crossed the open ocean to settle these islands? Why did three great powers send warships into a single harbour? What went wrong under New Zealand's administration, and how did Samoans answer it? And how does a modern parliament sit alongside an ancient system of chiefly titles?
The Lapita people, Austronesian speakers of Oceanic languages, sailed from Island Melanesia and settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago. At a Lapita site in Mulifanua, researchers found the earliest human remains in Samoa. They date to between roughly 2,900 and 3,500 years ago, and the findings were published in 1974. Studies of Polynesian genetics, linguistics, and anthropology still probe where the first Samoans came from. One theory places them in a final eastward push of Lapita peoples out of Southeast Asia and Melanesia, between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE.
Fiji and Tonga stayed close to Samoa for generations. The archaeological record backs up oral tradition and native genealogies describing voyages between the islands and marriages among Samoans, Fijians, and Tongans. On their new islands the settlers shaped a Samoan language and a distinct Samoan identity. Their seamanship became famous. Before the 20th century, European explorers called the whole island group, American Samoa included, the Navigator Islands.
Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutchman, was the first known non-Polynesian to sight the islands, in 1722. French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville followed and gave them the name Navigator Islands in 1768.
The name Samoa itself has competing explanations. It may come from Sāmoa, a compound of sā and moa. Another account traces it to a local chieftain named Samoa. A third points to an indigenous phrase meaning 'place of the chicken'.
Queen Salamasina, King Fonoti, and the Tui Manu'a line stand among the figures remembered in Samoan history. Nafanua, a woman warrior, was deified in ancient Samoan religion. Successive rulers sought her patronage.
Today the Sā Malietoa and the Sā Tupua unite all of Samoa under two principal royal families. The Sā Malietoa descend from the Malietoa lineage that defeated the Tongans in the 13th century. The Sā Tupua are the heirs of Queen Salamasina, whose descendants ruled Samoa in the centuries after her reign. Four titles sit at the very top: Malietoa, Tupua Tamasese, Mataʻafa, and Tuimalealiʻifano. Together they form the apex of the matai system, the order of chiefly titleholders that still shapes Samoan life. Malietoa and Tupua Tamasese are the elder titles of antiquity. The newer Mataʻafa and Tuimalealiʻifano titles rose to prominence in 19th-century wars that preceded the colonial period.
Mount Silisili, at 1858 m, is the highest point in Samoa, and it rises from islands built by fire. The archipelago began forming in the Miocene period. For the past 2 million years it has seen activity tied to volcanic hotspots. The Samoa hotspot probably results from a mantle plume. Only Savaiʻi, the westernmost island, remains volcanically active. Its recent eruptions came at Mauga Afi in 1725, Mata o le Afi in 1902, and Mount Matavanu from 1905-1911. The Matavanu eruptions left 50 km2 of solidified lava, now the Saleaula lava fields on the central north coast.
Samoa's total land area is 2,842 km2, and Upolu and Savaiʻi together make up 99% of it. Savaiʻi is the largest island and the sixth-largest in Polynesia, behind New Zealand's North, South and Stewart Islands and the Hawaiian islands of Hawaiʻi and Maui. Its population is roughly 42 thousand. Upolu is home to nearly three-quarters of all Samoans. Eight small islets complete the count. Three lie in the Apolima Strait: Manono Island, Apolima and Nuʻulopa. Four are the Aleipata Islands off the eastern end of Upolu: Nuʻutele, Nuʻulua, Namua and Fanuatapu. The eighth, Nuʻusafeʻe, covers less than one hectare and lies about 1.4 km off Upolu's south coast at the village of Vaovai.
The country sits south of the equator, about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. American Samoa is its nearest neighbour, 64 km to the east. Tonga is 889 km away and Fiji 1152 km. The climate is equatorial, with an average annual temperature of 26.5 °C and a main rainy season from November to April. Heavy rain can fall in any month.
Two-thirds of Samoa's labour force works in agriculture, which supplies 90% of exports. Coconut cream, coconut oil, noni juice and copra lead the list. Copra is dried coconut meat. Samoan cocoa beans are of very high quality and go into fine New Zealand chocolates. Tourism makes up around 20% of GDP, down from 24.5% in 2019. About 200,000 tourists visited in 2024, mostly from New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Pandemics, cyclones and the 2009 tsunami have made the sector volatile. Holidaymakers favour Lalomanu and Saleapaga beaches, the To Sua ocean trench, Piula Cave Pool and the Papaseea sliding rocks.
About 80% of the lowland rainforest has vanished since people began living on the islands. Reforestation has lifted forest cover to about 60.4% of the country, roughly 171,000 ha, of which 32,000 ha is planted forest. Within this ecoregion, 28% of plants and 84% of land birds are endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else.
In June 2025, Samoa legally adopted the Samoa Marine Spatial Plan. It zones the country's whole exclusive economic zone for both protection and managed use. Nine new fully protected marine areas cover 36000 km2.
In October 1821, the Salem brig Roscoe, under Captain Benjamin Vanderford, became the first American trading vessel known to call at Samoa. In 1824, the Maro of Nantucket, under Captain Richard Macy, was the first recorded United States whaler to stop there. Whalers wanted fresh drinking water, firewood and provisions. Later they also recruited local men as crew. The last recorded whaler to visit was the Governor Morton in 1870.
In 1830, John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived at Sapapaliʻi from the Cook Islands and Tahiti. Christian missionary work in Samoa began with his visit.
Robert Louis Stevenson watched the rivalry that followed and wrote A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa, published in 1892. It details the United States, Germany and Britain battling for influence, alongside the politics of the Samoan factions. As clan warfare worsened, what alarmed Stevenson most was the Samoans' economic innocence. In 1894, only months before his death, he told the island chiefs that the one way to defend Samoa was 'to occupy and use your country'. If they did not, he warned, others would. A 2013 report listed his villa and grave among the most popular attractions for holidaymakers.
German firms came to monopolise copra and cocoa bean processing on Upolu. The United States rested its own claim on shipping interests at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Pago Pago Bay in eastern Samoa. It forced alliances, most conspicuously on Tutuila and Manuʻa. Britain sent troops to protect its businesses, harbour rights and consulate. An eight-year civil war followed. Each of the three powers supplied arms, training and sometimes combat troops to Samoan parties.
In March 1889, all three powers sent warships into Apia harbour, and a larger war looked imminent. Then a massive storm on the 15th of March 1889 damaged or destroyed the ships. The military standoff ended.
The Second Samoan Civil War came to a head in 1898. In March 1899, the Siege of Apia pitted Samoan forces loyal to Prince Tanu against a larger rebel force loyal to Mataʻafa Iosefo. Landing parties from four British and American warships backed Tanu. American and British ships, including the USS Philadelphia, shelled Apia on the 15th of March 1899. After several days of fighting, the rebels were defeated.
The Tripartite Convention, signed at Washington on the 2nd of December 1899, then divided the islands. Ratifications were exchanged on the 16th of February 1900. The eastern group became American Samoa, with the Tutuila Islands joining in 1900 and Manuʻa officially in 1904. The western islands, by far the larger landmass, became German Samoa. Britain gave up its claims in Samoa. In return it received an end to German rights in Tonga, all of the Solomon Islands south of Bougainville, and territorial alignments in West Africa.
The German Empire governed the western islands from 1900 to 1914, and Wilhelm Solf served as the colony's first governor. The administration held that 'there was only one government in the islands'. There was no Samoan king, or Tupu, and no alii sili, a role similar to a governor. Instead the colonial government appointed two advisors called Fautua. Tumua and Pule, the traditional governments of Upolu and Savaiʻi, were for a time silent. The governor controlled all decisions on land and titles. German merchants and settlers also built large plantations for cocoa beans and rubber, relying on labourers imported from China and Melanesia.
In 1908, the non-violent Mau a Pule resistance movement arose. Solf promptly banished its leader, Lauaki Namulauʻulu Mamoe, to Saipan in the German Northern Mariana Islands.
On the 29th of August 1914, in the first month of World War I, troops of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force landed unopposed on Upolu and took control from the German authorities. Britain had asked New Zealand to perform a 'great and urgent imperial service'. New Zealand received the territory as a League of Nations mandate in 1920, and it became a United Nations Trust Territory in 1946. When the price of natural rubber fell sharply around 1918, New Zealand's government encouraged banana growing, since New Zealand offered a large market.
On the 7th of November 1918, the SS Talune arrived from Auckland. The New Zealand administration allowed it to berth in breach of quarantine rules. Western Samoa had seen no epidemic of pneumonic influenza before that day. Within seven days it was an epidemic on Upolu, and it spread rapidly across the territory. About 90% of Samoans were infected. Of the population, 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died. Samoa suffered more than any other Pacific island. A Royal Commission of Inquiry confirmed the cause in 1919. Confidence in New Zealand's competence collapsed, and some Samoans asked for rule to pass to the Americans or the British.
By 1918, Western Samoa had about 38,000 Samoans and 1,500 Europeans. Many Samoans blamed New Zealand's misrule for inflation and for the flu catastrophe. The Mau, a name meaning 'strongly held opinion', was a non-violent pro-independence movement that began in the early 1900s on Savaiʻi. Its early leader was Lauaki Namulauʻulu Mamoe, an orator chief deposed by Solf. He died in 1915 on his way back to Samoa. By the late 1920s the movement had widespread support. One of its leaders was Olaf Frederick Nelson, a merchant who was half Samoan and half Swedish. Exiled in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he kept supporting the Mau with money and political help.
On the 28th of December 1929, High Chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi, the newly elected Mau leader, led uniformed supporters in a peaceful demonstration in downtown Apia. New Zealand police tried to arrest one of the leaders. When he resisted, a struggle began. Officers fired randomly into the crowd and used a Lewis machine gun mounted in advance of the demonstration. Paramount chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III was shot from behind while trying to bring calm, and he was killed. Ten others died, and about 50 were injured by gunshots and police batons. Samoans came to call the day Black Saturday.
On the 13th of January 1930, the authorities banned the Mau. As many as 1500 Mau men took to the bush. An armed force of 150 marines and seamen from the light cruiser HMS Dunedin, plus 50 military police, pursued them. A seaplane flown by Flight Lieutenant Sidney Wallingford supported the force. Villages were raided, often at night and with fixed bayonets. In March, local Europeans and missionaries mediated a meeting between Mau leaders and New Zealand's Minister of Defence. The leaders agreed to disperse.
Arrests of Mau supporters continued, so women came to the fore, rallying supporters and staging demonstrations. The stalemate broke after the Labour Party won New Zealand's 1935 general election. A goodwill mission to Apia in June 1936 recognised the Mau as a legitimate political organisation, and Olaf Nelson was allowed to return from exile. In September 1936, Samoans elected members of the advisory Fono of Faipule for the first time. Mau representatives won 31 of the 39 seats.
In 2002, New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark formally apologised for her country's role in the 1918 influenza outbreak and for the Black Saturday killings.
The New Zealand Western Samoa Act of the 24th of November 1961 ended the Trusteeship Agreement and granted independence, effective the 1st of January 1962. Western Samoa became the first small-island country in the Pacific to be independent. Even so, Samoa celebrates its independence day on the 1st of June.
Fiamē Mataʻafa Faumuina Mulinuʻu II, one of the four highest-ranking paramount chiefs, became the first prime minister. Tuiaana Tuimalealiʻifano Suatipatipa II was admitted to the Council of Deputies. The remaining two, Tupua Tamasese Meaʻole and Malietoa Tanumafili II, became joint heads of state for life.
Later in 1962, Western Samoa signed a Treaty of Friendship with New Zealand. It joined the Commonwealth of Nations on the 28th of August 1970. On the 15th of December 1976 it was admitted to the United Nations as the 147th member state. It asked to be referred to there as the Independent State of Samoa.
In 1992, travel writer Paul Theroux noted marked differences between the societies of Western Samoa and American Samoa. In 1994, Western Samoa ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which entered into force for it on the 13th of September 1995. The treaty makes the island nation a party to efforts to manage marine resources and protect its vast regional ocean territory.
On the 4th of July 1997, the government amended the constitution to change the country's name from Western Samoa to Samoa, the name it had used at the United Nations since joining. American Samoa protested, asserting that the change diminished its own identity. The former name lives on, especially in the .ws internet domain.
On the 7th of September 2009, Samoa switched the rule of the road from right to left. That matched Australia and New Zealand, home to large numbers of Samoans. It made Samoa the first country in the 21st century to change to driving on the left.
The Fono, Samoa's unicameral Legislative Assembly, has 51 members who serve five-year terms. Forty-nine are matai, holders of chiefly titles, elected from territorial districts by Samoans. The other two are chosen by non-Samoans with no chiefly affiliation, on separate electoral rolls. At least ten per cent of members must be women. Universal suffrage arrived in 1990, but only chiefs may stand for the Samoan seats. There are more than 25,000 matai, and about five per cent of them are women.
The 1960 constitution came into force with independence in 1962. It follows the British pattern of parliamentary democracy, adjusted for Samoan customs. The government itself is called the Malo. A majority in the Fono chooses the prime minister, who is appointed by the head of state. The head of state also appoints the prime minister's choices for the 12 cabinet positions. The head of state, known as O le Ao o le Malo, has always been a paramount chief. Tuimalealiʻifano Vaʻaletoʻa Sualauvi II was elected by the legislature in 2017 and again in 2022. The courts blend English common law with local customs, and the Supreme Court is the highest.
Eleven itūmālō, or political districts, predate European arrival. Each has a constitutional foundation, called a faʻavae, based on the order of title precedence in its faalupega, the traditional salutations. A capital village in each district administers its affairs and confers its paramount title. Āʻana has its capital at Leulumoega, where an orator group called the Faleiva, the House of Nine, confers the Tui Āʻana title. Ātua has its capital at Lufilufi, where the Faleono, the House of Six, confers the Tui Ātua. Tuamasaga's capital is Afega, and its paramount royal title, Malietoa, is based in Malie.
In June 2017, Parliament amended Article 1 of the constitution. It now reads: 'Samoa is a Christian nation founded on God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.' The preamble already described an independent state based on Christian principles and Samoan custom and traditions. Major areas of human rights concern include the under-representation of women, domestic violence and poor prison conditions. Homosexual acts are illegal.
Samoa has no formal defence structure or regular armed forces. The 1962 Treaty of Friendship requires New Zealand to consider any request for assistance from Samoa. The Samoa Police Service has between 900 and 1,100 officers as of 2022. They are regularly unarmed, though they may be armed in exceptional circumstances with ministerial approval. In 2017 Samoa also signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
A measles outbreak began in October 2019 and subsided in early January. It killed 83 people and caused over 4,460 cases, mainly in children under four. Ten cases were reported in Fiji. The government imposed a curfew in December.
In May 2021, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa became Samoa's first female prime minister. She is the daughter of Laʻulu Fetauimalemau Mataʻafa (1928-2007), wife of Samoa's first prime minister. Her FAST party narrowly won the election, ending the rule of Tuilaʻepa Saʻilele Malielegaoi of the Human Rights Protection Party. She was sworn in on the 24th of May 2021, but a constitutional crisis complicated and delayed the handover. Not until July did the Supreme Court rule her swearing-in legal. That ended Tuilaʻepa's 22-year premiership and nearly four decades of HRPP rule. Since 2025, Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt has served as prime minister.
Faʻa Sāmoa, the traditional Samoan way, developed over 3,000 years and is among the oldest Polynesian cultures. It has withstood centuries of European influence while keeping its customs, social and political systems, and language. The ʻava ceremony is a solemn ritual at important occasions, including the bestowal of matai titles. The finely woven ʻie toga is among the items of great cultural value. The culture centres on vāfealoaʻi, the relationships between people, which rest on respect, or faʻaaloalo. Traditional fale, or houses, are open with no walls, and blinds of coconut palm fronds close them at night or in bad weather.
Most Samoans converted when Christianity arrived, and 98% now identify as Christian. In the 2021 census, the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa had 27%, Roman Catholics 19%, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 18%, Methodists 12% and Assembly of God 10%. Ancient beliefs still sit alongside Christianity. At Tiapapata, 8 km from Apia, stands the seventh of the world's nine Baháʼí Houses of Worship. It was completed in 1984 and dedicated by Malietoa Tanumafili II, a convert to the Baháʼí Faith.
Tagaloa and Nafanua feature in Samoan mythology. Nafanua is the goddess of war, and her father was Saveasiʻuleo, ruler of the spirit realm Pulotu. The well-known story of Sina and the Eel explains the origin of the first coconut tree.
The Peʻa is the male tattoo, with intricate geometric patterns covering the area from the knees up towards the ribs. A man who has one is called a sogaʻimiti. A girl, or teine, receives a malu, which covers the area from just below the knees to the upper thighs.
The siva dance uses gentle body movements, timed to music, to tell a story. The sasa has rows of dancers performing rapid synchronised movements to the rhythm of wooden drums called pate, or rolled mats. Men also perform the faʻataupati, the slap dance, which makes rhythmic sounds by slapping the body. It is believed to derive from slapping insects.
In 1996, Sima Urale's short film O Tamaiti won Best Short Film at the Venice Film Festival. The Orator, written and directed by Tusi Tamasese in 2011, was the first fully Samoan film. It was shot in Samoa, in the Samoan language, with a Samoan cast. In 1999, King Kapisi became the first hip hop artist to win the New Zealand APRA Silver Scroll Award, for his song Reverse Resistance. Its music video was filmed at his villages on Savaiʻi.
Rugby union is Samoa's national sport, and the national team is nicknamed Manu Samoa. It has competed at every Rugby World Cup since 1991, making the quarter finals in 1991 and 1995. At the 2003 World Cup it came close to beating eventual champions England. In 2007 the team won the Wellington and Hong Kong sevens tournaments, and Prime Minister Tuilaʻepa Saʻilele Malielegaoi, also chairman of the national rugby union, declared a national holiday. In 2010 Samoa were IRB World Sevens Series champions.
Samoans have also reached the top of sumo. Musashimaru and Konishiki, most famously, reached the ranks of yokozuna and ozeki. A 2002 article from ESPN estimated that a Samoan male, whether American Samoan or living on the US mainland, is 40 times more likely to play in the NFL than a non-Samoan American.
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Common questions
When did Samoa gain independence?
Samoa, then called Western Samoa, gained independence from New Zealand on the 1st of January 1962. It was the first small-island country in the Pacific to become independent, and it celebrates its independence day on the 1st of June.
Why did Samoa skip a day in December 2011?
Samoa skipped Friday, the 30th of December 2011, when it moved its time zone from UTC-11 to UTC+13. The change shifted the International Date Line to the east of the territory and was meant to help business with Australia and New Zealand.
Who first settled the Samoan Islands?
The Lapita people settled the Samoan Islands around 3,500 years ago, travelling from Island Melanesia. They developed the Samoan language and Samoan cultural identity.
What happened on Black Saturday in Samoa?
On the 28th of December 1929, New Zealand police fired on a peaceful Mau demonstration in Apia. Paramount chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III was killed along with ten others, and about 50 people were injured.
How badly did the 1918 influenza epidemic hit Samoa?
About 90% of Samoans were infected after the SS Talune arrived from Auckland on the 7th of November 1918. Some 30% of adult men, 22% of adult women and 10% of children died, the worst toll of any Pacific island.
When did Western Samoa change its name to Samoa?
The government amended the constitution on the 4th of July 1997 to change the name from Western Samoa to Samoa. American Samoa protested, asserting that the change diminished its own identity.
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