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Geography The islands of Samoa form one unit, both geographically and culturally. But they are politically divided into Samoa and American Samoa along longitude 171°. The islands of Samoa stretch out across approximately 500 km from east to west and the western-most tip of Savai’i just reaches the dateline. Samoa’s nearest neighbours are the northern group of the Cook Islands to the west; the northern foothills of Tonga to the south and Fiji to the southwest. Most of the Samoan islands are of volcanic origin and reach as high as 1,850 m. Some of them are still active volcanoes. The size of the islands decreases from west to east, whereby Savai’i (1,700 sq km) and Upolu (1,115 sq km) in Samoa are the largest in area, followed by the considerably smaller Tutuila in American Samoa (145 sq km) and the smallest of them all, the Manua Islands in the east. Samoa is mostly made up of the two large islands Savai’i and Upolu, which are around 70 km in length and 35 km and 25 km wide respectively. They are divided by an 18 km wide strait in which there are two uninhabited islands, Manono and Apolima. Off the eastern coast of Upolu are a few more small, uninhabited islands. Upolu, with its 120,000 inhabitants is far more populated than Savai’i. The capital city of Apia alone has 45,000 population. Savai’i has a population of around 45,000. American Samoa is made up of seven islands, the total area of which makes up three-quarters of the main island Tutuila. The largest bay is Pago Pago, a natural harbour named after a village which is now the capital.
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