Geography of Fiji


Fiji is a group of volcanic islands in the South Pacific, lying about southwest of Honolulu and north of New Zealand. Of the 332 islands and 522 smaller islets making up the archipelago, about 106 are permanently inhabited. The total land size is. It has the 26th largest Exclusive Economic Zone of.
Viti Levu, the largest island, covers about 57% of the nation's land area, hosts the two official cities and most other major towns, such as Nausori, Vaileka, Ba, Tavua, Kororvou, Nasinu, and Nadi, and contains some 69% of the population. Vanua Levu, to the north of Viti Levu, covers just over 30% of the land area though is home to only some 15% of the population. Its main towns are Labasa and Savusavu. In the northeast it features Natewa Bay, carving out the Loa peninsula.
Both islands are mountainous, with peaks up to rising abruptly from the shore, and covered with tropical forests. Heavy rains fall on the windward side, covering these sections of the islands with dense tropical forest. Lowlands on the western portions of each of the main islands are sheltered by the mountains and have a well-marked dry season favorable to crops such as sugarcane.
Other islands and island groups, which cover just 12.5% of the land area and house some 16% of the population, include Taveuni southeast off Vanua Levu and Kadavu Island, south off Viti Levu, the Mamanuca Group and Yasawa Group, which are popular tourist destinations, the Lomaiviti Group with Levuka, the former capital and the only major town on any of the smaller islands, located on the island of Ovalau, and the remote Lau Group over the Koro Sea to the east near Tonga, from which it is separated by the Lakeba Passage.
Two outlying regions are Rotuma, to the north, and the uninhabited coral atoll and cay Ceva-i-Ra or Conway Reef, to the southwest of main Fiji. Culturally conservative Rotuma with its 2,000 people on geographically belongs to Polynesia, and enjoys relative autonomy as a Fijian dependency.
Fiji Television reported on 21 September 2006 that the Fiji Islands Maritime and Safety Administration, while reviewing its outdated maritime charts, had discovered the possibility that more islands could lie within Fiji's Exclusive Economic Zone.
More than half of Fiji's population lives on the island coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centers. The interior is sparsely populated because of its rough terrain.

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Extreme points

This is a list of the extreme points of Fiji, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location.
The antipodes of Fiji are in eastern Mali, around the northernmost bend of the Niger River. The small western island of Yasawa is antipodal to the Niger about from Timbuktu, whereas the eastern cape of Vanua Levu corresponds to the old imperial city of Gao.
The antipodes of the dependency of Rotuma are in Burkina Faso, west of Ouagadougou.

Ecology

has more than three hundred islands, four of which are of a significant size. From largest to smallest, these four islands are Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, Kadavu Island, and Taveuni Island. The Fiji islands are home to numerous indigenous flora and fauna. These include: