29 Facts About Samoa

Samoa is a unitary parliamentary democracy with 11 administrative divisions.

Western Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976.

The earliest human remains found in Samoa are dated to between roughly 2, 900 and 3, 500 years ago.

Today, all of Samoa is united under its two principal royal families: the Sa Malietoa of the ancient Malietoa lineage that defeated the Tongans in the 13th century; and the Sa Tupua, Queen Salamasina's descendants and heirs who ruled Samoa in the centuries that followed her reign.

Christian missionary work in Samoa began in 1830 when John Williams of the London Missionary Society arrived in Sapapali'i from the Cook Islands and Tahiti.

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Samoa had "seen these judgments of God" in Hawaii, where abandoned native churches stood like tombstones "over a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar fields".

The United States laid its own claim, based on commercial shipping interests in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Pago Pago Bay in eastern Samoa, and forced alliances, most conspicuously on the islands of Tutuila and Manu'a, which became American Samoa.

Between 1919 and 1962, Samoa was administered by the Department of External Affairs, a government department which had been specially created to oversee New Zealand's Island Territories and Samoa.

On Samoa, there had been no epidemic of pneumonic influenza in Western Samoa before the arrival of the SS Talune from Auckland on 7 November 1918.

Western Samoa joined the Commonwealth of Nations on 28 August 1970.

On 15 December 1976, Western Samoa was admitted to the United Nations as the 147th member state.

American Samoa protested against the name change, asserting that it diminished its own identity.

In 2017, Samoa signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Samoa was succeeded by Tuimalealiifano Va'aletoa Sualauvi II in 2017.

The Chief Justice of Samoa is appointed by the head of state upon the recommendation of the prime minister.

Samoa has an equatorial climate, with an average annual temperature of 26.

The economy of Samoa has traditionally depended on agriculture and fishing at the local level.

Sixty percent of Samoa's electricity comes from renewable hydro, solar, and wind sources, with the remainder produced by diesel generators.

Staple products of Samoa are copra, cocoa beans (for chocolate), rubber, and bananas.

Pineapples grow well in Samoa, but have not moved beyond local consumption to become a major export.

Samoa reported a population of 194, 320 in its 2016 census.

Form and construction of traditional architecture of Samoa was a specialised skill by Tufuga fai fale that was linked to other cultural artforms.

Late John Kneubuhl, born in American Samoa, was an accomplished playwright and screenwriter and writer.

Samoa's play Think of Garden premiered in Auckland in 1993 a year after his death, it was directed by Nathaniel Lees, is set in 1929 and is about Samoa's struggle for independence.

Samoa has competed at every Rugby World Cup since 1991, and made the quarter finals in 1991, 1995 and the second round of the 1999 World Cup.

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At the 2003 world cup, Manu Samoa came close to beating eventual world champions, England.

Samoa played in the Pacific Nations Cup and the Pacific Tri-Nations.

Samoa reached the quarter finals of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, the team comprising players from the NRL and Super League plus domestic players.

American football is occasionally played in Samoa, reflecting its wide popularity in American Samoa, where the sport is played under high school sanction.