It is assumed that the first inhabitants of the hundreds of islands that make up the archipelago arrived about 3500 years ago via Indonesia and New Guinea.
(The actual number of islands is difficult to determine—sources range in estimate from 322 to more than 500! It is, however, agreed that 106 of these are inhabited.)
The first sighting of the islands by a westerner was in 1643, by Abel Tasman. Captain Bligh landed there in 1789 after the mutiny on the Bounty, and charted the area. Fiji became a British colony in 1874.
Fiji became an independent parliamentary democracy in 1970.
In 1987, the government was ousted by a military coup. Order was restored, but a second coup was staged by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka in September of that same year, and in October he declared Fiji a republic.
The Fijian parliament has two houses—the Senate with 22 seats, and the House of Representatives with 52 seats.
The country is divided into 4 divisions and 14 provinces.
