The 177 islands of Tonga in Polynesia cover 700 000 km² of the Pacific Ocean.
Tonga is located about 700 km southeast of Fiji and approximately 2000 km northeast of New Zealand.
36 of the islands are permanently inhabited.
The islands are divided into three groups, from north to south:
- Vava’u
- Ha’apai
- Tongatapu
King George Tupou I merged the three groups into Tonga in 1875.