[9] Tahiti's landscape features lush rainforests and many rivers and waterfalls, including the Papenoʻo on the north side and the Fautaua Falls near Papeʻete.

Maupiti, the oldest island in the chain, is a highly eroded shield volcano with at least 12 thin lava flows, which accumulated fairly rapidly between 4.79 and 4.05 Ma.

[22] Alternatively, Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, serving the Spanish Crown in an expedition to Terra Australis, was perhaps the first European to see Tahiti.

The first contacts were violent,[28][29] but to avert all-out war after a British show of force, Oberea laid down peace offerings[29] leading to cordial relations.

On 14 April Cook met Tutaha and Tepau[21]: 144  and the next day he picked the site for a fortified camp at Point Venus for Charles Green's observatory.

[21]: 147  Botanist Joseph Banks and artist Sydney Parkinson, along with Cook, gathered valuable information on fauna and flora as well as on native society, language and customs, including the proper name of the island.

[34] The Viceroy of Peru, Manuel de Amat y Juniet, under order of the Spanish Crown, organized an expedition to colonize the island in 1772.

Lt Tomas Gayangos took over command and set sail for Peru on 27 January, leaving the Fathers Geronimo Clota and Narciso Gonzalez and the sailors Maximo Rodriguez and Francisco Perez in charge of the mission.

On the third Aguila expedition, under Don Cayetano de Langara, the mission on Tahiti was abandoned on 12 November 1775, when the Fathers successfully begged to be taken back to Lima.

Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist from James Cook's first expedition, had concluded that this plant would be ideal to feed the African slaves working in the Caribbean plantations at very little cost.

Although various explorers had refused to get involved in tribal conflicts, the mutineers from the Bounty offered their services as mercenaries and furnished arms to the family which became the Pōmare Dynasty.

Captain Bligh explains that this name was a homage to his eldest daughter Teriʻinavahoroa, who had died of tuberculosis, "an illness that made her cough (mare) a lot, especially at night (pō)".

The arrival of these whalers, who were subsequently joined by merchants coming from the penal colonies in Australia, marked the first major overturning of traditional Tahitian society.

[38] On 5 March 1797, representatives of the London Missionary Society landed at Matavai Bay (Mahina) on board Duff, with the intention of converting the pagan native populations to Christianity.

On 12 November 1815, thanks to these alliances, Pōmare II won a decisive battle at Feʻi Pī (Punaʻauia), notably against Opuhara,[39] the chief of the powerful clan of Teva.

Taking advantage of the weakness of the Pōmare, local chiefs won back some of their power and took the hereditary title of Tavana (from the English word "governor").

The Birmingham-born missionary George Pritchard, who was the acting British consul, became her main adviser and tried to interest her in the affairs of the kingdom but the authority of the Queen, who was certainly less charismatic than her father, was challenged by the chiefs, who had won back an important part of their prerogatives since the death of Pōmare II.

The Queen was responsible for internal affairs, while France would deal with foreign relations and assure the defence of Tahiti, as well as maintain order on the island.

[44] By way of reprisal, Admiral Dupetit-Thouars announced the annexation of the Kingdom of Pōmare on 6 November 1843 and set up the governor Armand Joseph Bruat there as the chief of the new colony.

The annexation caused the Queen to be exiled to the Leeward Islands, and after a period of troubles, a real Franco-Tahitian war began in March 1844.

The new king seemed little concerned with the affairs of the kingdom, and when in 1880 the governor Henri Isidore Chessé, supported by the Tahitian chiefs, pushed him to abdicate in favour of France, he accepted.

In 1891 Matthew Turner, an American shipbuilder from San Francisco who had been seeking a fast passage between the city and Tahiti, built Papeete, a two-masted schooner that made the trip in seventeen days.

On 17 July 1974, the French did a nuclear test over Mururoa Atoll, codenamed Centaure [fr], but the atomic cloud and fallout did not take the direction planned.

In a surprise result, Oscar Temaru's pro-independence progressive coalition, Union for Democracy, formed a government with a one-seat majority in the 57-seat parliament, defeating the conservative party, Tāhōʻeraʻa Huiraʻatira, led by Gaston Flosse.

[53] The indigenous Tahitians are of Polynesian ancestry and make up 70% of the population alongside Europeans, East Asians (mostly Chinese), and people of mixed heritage, sometimes referred to as Demis.

A main way of consume it is famously observed and documented in Joseph Banks' diaries is by storing breadfruit into a very ripe, sweetening stage before burying them in weighted and leaf-lined pits which ferment into a sour paste known as mahie.

The annual Heivā I Tahiti Festival in July is a celebration of traditional culture, dance, music and sports including a long-distance race between the islands of French Polynesia, in modern outrigger canoes (vaʻa).

When a Tahitian died, the corpse was wrapped in barkcloth and placed on a funeral bier, fare tupapa ʻu, which was a raised canoe awning on posts surrounded by bamboo.

Most importantly, the Chief Mourner donned the parae, an elaborate costume that included an iridescent mask made of four polished pearl shell discs.

Major sports in Tahiti include rugby union and association football and the island has fielded a national basketball team, which is a member of FIBA Oceania.