Fiji
Fiji is a country in the South Pacific Ocean.Fiji, officially Republic of the Fiji Islands, an independent country and an island group in the Pacific Ocean, about 3,000 miles (4,830 km) southwest of Hawaii. Fiji consists of two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, and some 800 volcanic and coral islands and islets. Their total area is 7,055 square miles (18,272 km2). Fiji's larger islands are mountainous and of volcanic origin; they reach heights up to about 4,300 feet (1,310 m). The climate is warm and rainy. Luxuriant forests cover the windward (southeastern) sides of the larger islands.
Fiji's economy is based primarily on agriculture. A wide variety of tropical crops are grown for local consumption; sugarcane and coconuts are produced chiefly as commercial crops. Raw sugar accounts for the major part of Fiji's export earnings. Other exports include fish, gold, petroleum products, and timber. Tourism is developing rapidly; it is second only to sugar as a source of foreign exchange. Gold production is also significant. Efforts to develop manufacturing are being made to offset the nation's normally unfavorable balance of trade. The country manufactures such products as beer, building materials, cement, and cigarettes.
Fiji lies on the main air and sea routes between Australia and North America and is a major communications center and port of call in the southwest Pacific. An international airport is located at Nadi. Suva, the capital, is the chief seaport. Roads are poorly developed. There are no railways other than short lines carrying sugarcane.
Roughly three-fourths of the people of Fiji live on Viti Levu, largely in coastal areas. Some 100 other islands are inhabited.
Indigenous Fijians account for more than half of the population; they are largely of Melanesian descent. About one-third of the population are Indians, descendants of indentured laborers brought from India between 1879 and 1916 to work on sugar plantations. Indians and other nonindigenous Fijians control most of the commerce and industry. Indigenous Fijians own most of the land and are engaged chiefly in agriculture.
Virtually all indigenous Fijians are Christians, mostly Methodists. Hinduism is the predominant religion among the Indians. Fiji has three official languages: English, Fijian , and Hindustani, the spoken form of Hindi. English is used in the schools. About 85 per cent of the people are literate. The chief institution of higher learning is the University of the South Pacific, at Suva.
Under the constitution of 1997 Fiji is a republic. A president is the head of state, and a prime minister is head of government.
HistoryThe Fiji Islands were discovered by Abel Tasman, a Dutchman, in 1643 and were not revisited until Captain James Cook arrived in 1774. The first European settlement was made early in the 1800's. Missionaries soon followed and eventually succeeded in spreading Christianity and ending cannibalism. In 1874, after a period of chaos, Great Britain annexed the islands at the request of the native chiefs. About the same time, diseases brought by the Europeans greatly reduced the native population, leading to the importation of Indian labor.
Fiji became independent in 1970 and remained affiliated with Britain through membership in the British Commonwealth. The new nation was troubled by strife between Indians and indigenous Fijians. In 1987, following elections in which a largely Indian party won control of the government, Fijian military officers seized power. Fiji was declared a republic and left the Commonwealth. A new constitution ensuring control of the government by indigenous Fijians was adopted in 1990. This modification was removed in 1997, and Fiji rejoined the Commonwealth. In 1999 the country elected its first ethnic Indian prime minister. In 2000, an armed gang demanding a government led by indigenous Fijians took the prime minister hostage. Soon after, military leaders discarded the constitution and installed a nationalist government.