[2] ʻEua is a hilly island, the highest peaks are the Teʻemoa (chicken manure) 312 m, and the Vaiangina (watersprings) 305 m. The island is not volcanic, but was shaped by the rubbing of the Tonga Plate against the Pacific Plate, pushing ʻEua up and leaving the 7-kilometre-deep (4.3 mi) Tonga Trench on the bottom of the ocean, a short distance towards the east.

The soil of ʻEua is volcanic, as is that of Tongatapu, but only the top layer, deposited by eruptions of nearby volcanoes ten thousands years ago.

[4] ʻEua was put on the European maps by Abel Tasman who reached it and Tongatapu on 21 January 1643.

He did not go on land, but proceeded to the Hihifo district of Tongatapu, which he named Amsterdam Island after the capital of the Netherlands.

ʻEua was considered by early missionaries as heathen as it was the rendezvous for whalers, a place that you can trade goods for guns, knives, axes and gunpowder.

3.8 kilometres (2.4 miles) south-west of the southern tip of ʻEua (Lakufaʻanga) is the 35-acre island Kalau.

The villages of the original inhabitants of ʻEua are all in the north: Houma, Taʻanga, ʻOhonua, Pangai, Tufuvai.