[4] The first village on Atafu was established at its southern end: Residents built houses along the lagoon shore to take best advantage of the cooling trade winds.

It is low-lying, reaching a maximum altitude of only some five metres (16 feet), and is heavily vegetated with coconut palms and other trees, with undergrowth similar to that found on many small central Pacific islands.

The eastern side of the lagoon is a nearly continuous thin strip of land with one small break halfway along its length.

The flatness of the atoll and its location within the tropical cyclone belt has led to damage to island properties on occasion.

Some 70 ha of the southern and south-western parts of the atoll have been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because the site supports breeding colonies of brown and black noddiess and common white terns, with about 30,000 breeding pairs estimated in 2011.

[11] In 1979, as part of the Treaty of Tokehega, the U.S. formally renounced its prior claim on Atafu and the other Tokelauan islands now under New Zealand sovereignty, and a maritime boundary between Tokelau and American Samoa was established.

On 26 August 2007, Ralph Tuijn, who was attempting to row a boat from South America to Australia, crash-landed on Atafu.

[12] On 26 November 2010, three teenage boys from Atafu were rescued after having drifted 1,300 km (800 mi) for 50 days in the Pacific.