The motus are covered primarily with coconut palms and tropical scrub with sandy beaches, and comprise a total land area of about 3.5 km2 (1.4 sq mi).

Its crew and passengers, including twenty-four women and children, lived on the atoll for two months, during which time they were able to build a boat with which they were able to sail to Ra'iātea.

There is no evidence that the islands were ever permanently inhabited prior to the shipwreck of the Julia Ann, a ship whose passengers were mainly Latter-day Saints on their way from Australia to the United States.

The islands, which have no regular ship or airline connections with other locations in French Polynesia, are owned by the "Compagnie Française de Tahiti", which cultivated 57,000 coconut palms there in the 1920s.

It was also featured in an episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive and I Survived... Other names given to Manuaʻe include Fenua 'Ura and Putai (Tahitian), Isla de Pájaros ("Island of Birds", in Spanish), and Scilly (English).