Taha'a

Taha’a (sometimes spelled as "Tahaa") is an island located among the western group, the Leeward Islands, of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The islands of Taha’a and neighboring Raiatea to the immediate south are enclosed by the same coral reef, and they may once have been a single island. At the 2017 census it had a population of 5,234. The island has an area of . Mount Ohiri is the highest mountain on the island standing at above sea level. It is also known as the "Vanilla Island" and produces pearls of exceptional quality. Taha’a is spelled in Tahitian using the apostrophe (in fact a variant of it, the okina, hard to differentiate from the regular apostrophe when using small fonts) to represent the glottal stop, as promoted by the Académie Tahitienne and accepted by the territorial government. This apostrophe, however, is often omitted. In old travelogues, the transcription Oataha is sometimes used. Tahaa was formerly called Uporu, after the island of Upolu in Samoa. Due to its proximity to Raiatea, it has been strongly dependent. But during the 18th and 19th centuries it was a strategic place in the conflict of rivalries between Raiatea and Bora Bora. According to Polynesian legend, Tahaa and Raiatea were separated by the wagging tail of an eel, possessed by the spirit of a princess. At the time of Captain Cook's visits in 1769 and 1773, the island was under the occupation of Bora Bora warriors. In 1863 a Chilean ship that was in search of slaves was shipwrecked near the town of Tiva in the southwest of the island, some of the crew members stayed and adopted local wives, which gave rise to their descendants being called the "Spanish clan". The island became a protectorate and then a French colony, and is now part of French Polynesia. There are numerous smaller islands in the reef surrounding Taha'a, particularly to the north. At least one of these islands, Moie, is privately owned. Taha'a has a humid tropical maritime climate.