French Polynesia is a French overseas collectivity and the country's lone overseas territory. It is made up of 121 geographically separated islands and atolls that spread over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) in the South Pacific Ocean. French Polynesia has a total land area of 3,521 square kilometers (1,359 square miles) and a population of 299,356 people (2022 estimate).
French Polynesia is separated into five island groups:
1. the Society Islands archipelago, comprising the Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands
2. the Tuamotu Archipelago
3. the Gambier Islands
4. the Marquesas Islands
5. the Austral Islands.
At the time of the 2017 census, 75 of its 121 islands and atolls were inhabited. Tahiti, the most populated island in the Society Islands group, is home to almost 69 percent of French Polynesia's population as of 2017. The capital of French Polynesia is Papeete, which is situated on the island of Tahiti. Clipperton Island was managed by French Polynesia until 2007, despite the fact that it was not a part of its territory.
Hundreds of years after the Great Polynesian Migration, European explorers started sailing through the area, making many visits to the islands of French Polynesia. Visitors included traders and whaling ships. The French acquired control of the islands in 1842 and formed a French protectorate known as Établissements Français d'Océanie (EFO) (French Establishments/Settlements of Oceania).
Under the constitution of the French Fourth Republic, the EFO became an overseas territory in 1946, and Polynesians were given the ability to vote via citizenship. The EFO was renamed French Polynesia in 1957. French Polynesia joined the Pacific Community, a regional development organization, in 1983. Under the constitutional revision of article 74, French Polynesia has been an overseas collectivity of the French Republic since 28 March 2003, and later gained administrative autonomy with law 2004-192 of 27 February 2004, two symbolic manifestations of which are the title of President of French Polynesia and its additional designation as an overseas country.