Like every other settlement in the country, Apia Village has its own matai (leaders) and fa'alupega (genealogy and customary greetings) according to fa'a Samoa.

All the ships sank or were damaged beyond repair, except for the British cruiser Calliope, which managed to leave port, travelling at a rate of one mile per hour, and was able to ride out the storm.

[citation needed] In August 1914, the Occupation of German Samoa by an expeditionary force from New Zealand began.

[5] The country underwent a struggle for political independence in the early 1900s, organised under the aegis of the national Mau movement.

On what became known as "Black Saturday" (28 December 1929), during a peaceful Mau gathering in the town, the New Zealand constabulary killed the paramount chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi III.

[6] During World War II the United States Navy built and operated Naval Base Upolu from 1941 to 1944.

It is on a narrow coastal plain with Mount Vaea (elevation 472 metres (1,549 ft)), the burial place of writer Robert Louis Stevenson, directly to its south.

Problems of flooding are commonplace in the wet season, given the low flood-prone valley that the city is built on.

The disparate village administrations of the Apia Urban Area has resulted in a lack of a unified and codified legislative approach to sewerage disposal.

Mulinuʻu, the old ceremonial capital, lies at the city's western end, and is the location of the Parliament House (Maota Fono), and the historic observatory built during the German era is now the meteorology office.

An area of reclaimed land jutting into the harbour is the site of the Fiame Mataafa Faumuina Mulinuu II (FMFM II) building, the multi-storey government offices named after the first Prime Minister of Samoa, and the Central Bank of Samoa.

The ACC building (2001) houses the Accident Compensation Board, the National Bank of Samoa, and some government departments.

The Samoatel building (2004) which is the site for Samoa's international telecommunications hub, was built inland at Maluafou, also to protect it from the effects of seasonal cyclones.

Scottish-born writer Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last four years of his life here, and is buried on Mount Vaea, overlooking both the city and the home he built, Vailima, now a museum in his honour.

Designed by architect Hossein Amanat and opened in 1984, it serves the island as a gathering space for people of all backgrounds and religions to meditate, reflect, and pray together.

There are few bicycles and motorcycles, but traffic congestion due to a huge increase in vehicle ownership has necessitated a major upgrade in road infrastructure.

In addition, the University of the South Pacific School of Agriculture maintains a campus at Alafua,[21] on the outskirts of Apia.

The complex, based in Apia, is also the venue of the Samoa national football team's home matches and has a capacity of 3,500.

The capital also hosted from 2009 to 2012 the IJF Judo World Cup, which was downgraded in 2013 to become a regional tournament called the 'Oceania Open'.

The national teams of Samoa, Belgium, Japan, Suriname, Ghana, Bhutan, Norway and Vanuatu took part.