Yasawa Archipelago
Coordinates: 16°55′S 177°20′E / 16.917°S 177.333°E
The Yasawa Group is an archipelago of about 20 volcanic islands in the Western Division of Fiji, with an approximate total area of 135 square kilometers.
The Yasawa volcanic group consists of six main islands and numerous smaller islets. The archipelago, which stretches in a north-easterly direction for more than 80 kilometers from a point 40 kilometers north-west of Lautoka, is volcanic in origin and very mountainous, with peaks ranging from 250 to 600 meters in height. The only safe passage for shipping is between Yasawa Island (the largest in the archipelago, about 22 kilometers long and less than a kilometer wide) and Round Island, 22 kilometers to the north-east.
The British navigator William Bligh was the first European to sight the Yasawas in 1789, following the mutiny on the Bounty. Captain Barber in the HMS Arthur visited the islands in 1794, but they were not charted until 1840, when they were surveyed and charted by a United States expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes.
Throughout the 1800s, Tongan raiders bartered for, and sometimes stole, the sail mats for which the Yasawa was famous for. The islands were largely ignored by the wider world until World War II, when the United States military used them as communications outposts.
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