Manu'a

The Manuainseln (English Manua Islands Group, samoan. Manua tele, old name Baumann Islands) are too American Samoa belonging archipelago.

Geography

They include the second, the third and the fourth largest island of the territory: tau ( 45.7 km ² ), Ofu (7.5 km ²) and Olosega (5.4 km ²), and the small uninhabited Nuutele Iceland and lie about 100 km east of Tutuila, the main island of American Samoa. Ofu and Olosega are connected by a sandbar to a double island ( Ofu Olosega ). The main town of Manuainseln is dew on the homonymous island.

The four islands are of volcanic origin and is famous for its spectacular, lush mountain landscape and its sandy beaches. The mountain Lata on tau is 969 m ( in other sources: 995 m), the highest point in American Samoa. The cliffs of the island reach heights of over 350 m.

History

The archipelago was on 14-15. June 1722 discovered by Jakob Roggeveen for Europe, which she called Baumann Islands, after the captain of his ship accompanying Thien Hoven.

On the Manuainseln live in small villages a total of about 5,000 people, almost all of which the Polynesians. In 1904, the islands came under U.S. rule. The islands of Ofu and Tau have airfields; there are regular flights to Pago Pago, capital of American Samoa. Large parts of the archipelago since 1988 belong to the National Park of American Samoa.

The American anthropologist and ethnologist Margaret Mead lived as a young researcher for some time in the village Luma on dew and studied the traditional Samoan society there.

In February 2005, the Manuainseln were hard hit by a tropical cyclone. Especially in the villages dew and Faleasao large property had been damaged.