It is a very young active stratovolcano 110 kilometres (68 mi) east of the Taiarapu Peninsula of Tahiti.

[1] The island has an area of 2.3 square kilometres (0.89 sq mi) and its highest point is 435 metres (1,427 ft).

[2][3] Tahitian oral tradition holds that navigators stopped at Mehitiʻa, which was regarded as sacred, on their long voyage to New Zealand.

[4] This oral history correlates with geological evidence found in southern New Zealand which can be traced back to Mehitiʻa.

[10] Later on it was sighted by Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin 1767 and Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1768.