French Polynesia

French Polynesia is an overseas collectivity of France in the South Pacific, comprising 121 geographically dispersed islands and atolls stretching over more than 2,000 kilometres, with a total land area of 3,521 square kilometres. It is divided into five island groups: the Austral Islands, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesas Islands, the Society Islands — comprising the Leeward and Windward Islands — and the Tuamotus. Tahiti, the most populous island and home to nearly 69 per cent of the population, holds the capital, Papeete. French contact grew through explorers, traders and whaling ships; in 1842 the French took over the islands and established a protectorate they called Établissements français d'Océanie (EFO, the French Establishments of Oceania) — the entity shown on the map, under whose name the islands remained through the period shown until 1945. In 1946 the EFO became an overseas territory under the constitution of the French Fourth Republic, and Polynesians gradually gained fuller self-government in later decades. The territory is classified by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory and is associated with the European Union as an overseas country and territory.