What makes Polynesia a region

Land, and the water around it

The National Library of Australia puts 6,000 to 7,000 kilometres of ocean between the corners of the Polynesian triangle, and sets 310,000 square kilometres of land inside the eastern half of it against 36 million square kilometres of sea. Most of that land belongs to New Zealand, which is filed here under Australasia. What is left is small and far apart: Tokelau at 10 square kilometres, Tuvalu at 25, Pitcairn at 47, American Samoa at 199, the Cook Islands at 240, Niue at 260, Wallis and Futuna at 274. French Polynesia holds 4,167 square kilometres and Samoa 2,842. Mont Orohena in French Polynesia rises to 2,241 metres, and the point recorded for Tuvalu stands at 5 metres, on Niulakita.

Height of that order is the subject of a treaty. The Falepili Union between Australia and Tuvalu entered into force on 28 August 2024, recognising Tuvalu's continuing statehood and sovereignty notwithstanding sea level rise and opening a permanent residence pathway in Australia for up to 280 Tuvaluans a year.

A day apart, and 125 kilometres apart

At the end of 29 December 2011 Samoa and Tokelau crossed from the eastern to the western side of the international date line, and Friday 30 December 2011 did not occur there. The reason given was trade: the trading partners that mattered, in New Zealand and Australia, were already a day ahead. Apia keeps UTC+13. Pago Pago, about 125 kilometres away, keeps UTC-11, so the two capitals read the same hour on different calendar dates. Eastward the offsets fall further, to UTC-10 in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia and UTC-8 on Pitcairn.

Who answers to whom

Samoa joined the United Nations on 15 December 1976, Tonga on 14 September 1999 and Tuvalu on 5 September 2000. The Cook Islands and Niue govern themselves in free association with New Zealand, the Cook Islands since 1965 and Niue since 19 October 1974, and Cook Islanders and Niueans hold New Zealand citizenship. Neither appears on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories. Four countries in this region do appear on it: American Samoa, French Polynesia, Pitcairn and Tokelau.

Tokelau has voted twice on taking the same free association arrangement as its neighbours. About 60% backed it in February 2006. In October 2007, 446 of 692 valid votes, or 64.4%, backed it, and the two-thirds threshold set for the ballot was missed by 16 votes.

Birth in American Samoa confers United States nationality without United States citizenship. The Immigration and Nationality Act treats American Samoa and Swains Island as an outlying possession rather than as incorporated territory, and the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has not been applied there.

The currencies divide along the same lines. Four countries pay in New Zealand dollars, two in CFP francs, and one each in Australian dollars, United States dollars, Samoan tala and Tongan pa'anga.

Where the edges are argued

The M49 standard of the UN Statistics Division draws Polynesia around exactly this group, and states that its groupings are a statistical convenience implying nothing about political affiliation. The disagreement is about the corners rather than the middle. Hawaii, New Zealand and Rapa Nui were settled out of the same voyaging tradition and speak related languages, and each is filed with the state that administers it: Hawaii inside the United States, New Zealand under Australasia, Rapa Nui under Chile. Both readings hold the same islands to be Polynesian. They differ over whether the region drawn on the page is a cultural one or an administrative one.