Fiji

Fiji was settled around 3,000 years ago by the Lapita people, whose distinctive pottery marks the spread of Austronesian voyagers across the Pacific. Over centuries a society of chiefdoms developed, with a fearsome reputation among early European sailors — the islands were long called the "Cannibal Isles" — and a complex politics of alliance and war among rival confederacies.

European traders came for sandalwood and sea cucumber in the early 1800s, followed by missionaries and settlers. After a period of instability, the paramount chief Cakobau ceded Fiji to Britain in 1874. The colonial government protected Indigenous land ownership but, to work the sugar plantations, brought more than 60,000 indentured labourers from India between 1879 and 1916, whose descendants became a large part of the population.

Fiji became independent in 1970. Tension between Indigenous Fijian political dominance and the large Indo-Fijian community erupted into military coups in 1987, a civilian putsch in 2000, and another coup in 2006 led by Frank Bainimarama, who then governed for years and introduced a 2013 constitution. A change of government in 2022, after an election, returned the country to more normal politics.

Fijian society has two main communities. Indigenous Fijians (iTaukei) live largely in villages organised around the mataqali (landowning clan) and the chief, hold communal title to most of the land, and are predominantly Methodist Christian. Indo-Fijians, mostly Hindu with a Muslim minority, are concentrated in the sugar-cane belt and the towns and dominate small business and the professions.

Kava (yaqona), a mildly sedative drink made from a pounded pepper root, is the social and ceremonial glue of iTaukei life; a sevusevu — presenting a bundle of kava to the village headman — is the proper way to enter a community. The meke (chant and dance), the lovo earth oven, and mat-and-tapa-cloth making are living traditions.

Rugby, especially rugby sevens, is a national passion and a source of huge pride — Fiji won Olympic gold in the sport in 2016 and 2021. Warmth toward visitors is genuine and often summed up in the ubiquitous greeting "Bula!"

About three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levu, the main island, split between Nadi and Lautoka in the drier west, where tourism and sugar are based, and Suva, the capital, a wetter, hillier city on the southeast coast that is the largest urban centre in the South Pacific outside Auckland and Honolulu.

The economy leans heavily on tourism — the biggest employer and foreign-exchange earner — along with sugar, water bottling, fish, garments, and remittances from Fijians working overseas, including in the British and other armed forces. Cyclones and their damage to crops and resorts are a recurring economic shock.

Village life runs on subsistence farming and fishing, the church, and communal obligations; town life on wage work, the market, and the bus. Sunday is widely observed as a day of rest, especially in iTaukei areas.

Fijian food combines Melanesian roots crops, Indian curries, and Chinese and Western influences. The iTaukei staple is starchy "provisions" — taro (dalo), cassava, and breadfruit — with fish, and palusami, taro leaves baked in coconut cream, often cooked in a lovo earth oven for feasts. Kokoda, raw fish "cooked" in lime juice and coconut milk, is the signature dish.

Indo-Fijian cooking has become part of the everyday national diet: roti and curry, dhal, and lolo (coconut) dishes, sold cheaply at markets and roadside stalls. Chinese-style stir-fries and fried rice are common in the towns.

Kava is the drink of ceremony and socialising, sipped from a coconut-shell bowl with a clap before and after. Fiji's bottled water is a major export, and Fiji Bitter and Fiji Gold are the local beers.

Most visitors head straight from Nadi to the islands. The Mamanuca group, close offshore, holds the day-trip and resort islands, calm lagoons, and famous surf breaks like Cloudbreak. The Yasawas, a chain stretching northwest, are more rugged and lower-key, with backpacker lodges, the Sawa-i-Lau limestone caves, and the beaches used in the film "The Blue Lagoon."

Viti Levu itself offers the Coral Coast resorts on the south shore, the Sigatoka Sand Dunes and river valley, whitewater rafting on the Navua, and the highland village and forest walks of the interior. Suva has the excellent Fiji Museum, colonial architecture, and a big produce-and-craft market.

For diving and remoteness, Taveuni — the "Garden Island" — has the Bouma waterfalls, the Lavena coastal walk, and the soft-coral Rainbow Reef in the Somosomo Strait; Kadavu has the Great Astrolabe Reef; and the Lau and Lomaiviti groups, far to the east, remain almost untouched by tourism.