In 2004...Exploring Fiji...Went to a tiny Fijian island in the Pacific ocean…Tiny island: 3 minutes to walk from East to West, 5 minutes from North to South (The playful tourist guide keeps warning us not to get “lost” on the island !!!). Anyway, with the ocean level rising gradually because of climate change, not sure if this island is still around.
Fiji consists of 332 islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean about 1,960 mi/3,152 km from Sydney, Australia. About 110 of these islands are inhabited. The two largest are Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Fiji, which had been inhabited since the second millennium B.C., was explored by the Dutch and the British in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1874, an offer of cession by the Fijian chiefs was accepted, and Fiji was proclaimed a possession and dependency of the British Crown. In the 1880s large-scale cultivation of sugarcane began. Over the next 40 years, more than 60,000 indentured laborers from India were brought to the island to work the plantations. By 1920, all indentured servitude had ended. Racial conflict between Indians and the indigenous Fijians has been central to the small island's history.