Apia

Why it's the capital

Apia was a small village until the modern town grew up around its harbour in the 1850s. It was the capital of German Samoa from 1900 to 1914, and it has been the official capital of Samoa since 1959.

Fun facts

1. In March 1889 seven warships from Germany, the United States and Britain stayed in Apia harbour as a typhoon approached, and all of them sank or were wrecked except the British cruiser Calliope, which escaped to the open sea.
2. The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last four years of his life here; his house at Vailima is now a museum, and his grave is on Mount Vaea above the town.
3. Mulinu'u, at the western end of Apia, was the old ceremonial capital, and Samoa's Parliament House stands there.