Upolu

In Hawaii, Upolu Point is the northern cape of the Big Island of Hawai‘i.

Upolu

Map of Samoa
Geography
Location	Pacific Ocean
Coordinates	13°55′S 171°45′W / 13.917°S 171.75°W / -13.917; -171.75
Area	1,125 square kilometres (434 sq mi)
Length	75 kilometres (47 mi)
Country
Samoa
Largest city	Apia (pop. 58,800)
Demographics
Population	134,400 (as of 2001)
Density	119.47 /km2 (309.4 /sq mi)
Ethnic groups	92.6% Samoans, 7% Euronesians (persons of European and Polynesian blood), 0.4% Europeans

Upolu is an island in Samoa, formed by a massive basaltic shield volcano which rises from the seafloor of the western Pacific Ocean. The island is 75 kilometres (47 mi) long, 1,125 km² (434 sq mi) in area, and is the second largest and most populated of the Samoan islands, lying to the east of the "big island", Savai'i. The capital Apia is in the middle of the north coast with Faleolo International Airport at the western end of the island. The island has not had any historically recorded eruptions, although three lava flows date back only a few hundred to a few thousand years.

In Polynesian mythology (specifically Samoan), Upolu is the first woman on the island of the same name. In the late 18th and early 19th century, the island was sometimes called Ojalava or Ojolava.^{[citation needed]}

In the late 19th century Robert Louis Stevenson owned a four-hundred acre (1.6 km²) estate at Vailima and died there in 1894. The Vailima estate was purchased in 1900 as official residence for the German governor and, after British/Dominion confiscation, served successively as residence for the New Zealand administrator and for the Samoan head of state after independence.

An extremely small species of spider lives on Upolu. According to the Guinness Book of World Records 2005, the spider is the size of a period on a page from that book.^{[citation needed]}

The island was the filming location for Survivor: Samoa, the nineteenth season of the CBS competitive reality television series Survivor.^[1]

2009 Samoa Tsunami

The island of Upolu was affected by a tsunami following a 2009 Samoa earthquake of an 8.0 M_w earthquake in the Samoan Islands region at 06:48:11 local time on September 29, 2009 (17:48:11 UTC).^[2] The worst hit area was on the east and south coast of the island with fatalities and extensive damage.^[3]

See also

• Archaeology in Samoa
• 2009 Samoa Tsunami main article

References

Coordinates: 13°55′S 171°45′W / 13.917°S 171.75°W / -13.917; -171.75