Nuku Hiva (sometimes spelled Nukahiva or Nukuhiva) is the largest of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas country of France in the Pacific Ocean.

Herman Melville wrote his book Typee based on his experiences in the Taipivai valley in the eastern part of Nuku Hiva.

In Vaihi ridge just south of Taipivai, there exists petroglyphs that records the introduction of horses brought into the island by Admiral Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars in 1842.

[1] The central part of the island is a high plateau called To'ovi'i, covered primarily by a tall-grass prairie, on which experiments in cattle raising are taking place for the first time.

[citation needed] On the western edge of To'ovi'i rises Tekao, the island's highest peak, which reaches an elevation of 1,224 metres (4,016 ft).

[citation needed] Pine forest plantations covering large areas all around the crater of To'ovi'i give an overall impression of the lower Alps and parts of Germany, Wales and Switzerland.

Historical sources are sparse, and it is unclear when various diseases commonly seen in the New World, Europe and Asia first appeared in Nuku Hiva.

[citation needed] Goats, fish and, more rarely, pigs, are the main sources of meat but there is a growing amount of local beef available.

[citation needed] Nuku Hiva Island was connected to French Polynesia via a Submarine fiber optic cable system called NATITUA in 2018.

[citation needed] Latest studies indicate that the first people to arrive here came from west Polynesia around 2000 years ago, only later colonizing Tahiti, Hawai'i, The Cook Islands and New Zealand.

The tales of cannibalism received widespread publicity in 2011 when the burnt remains of a German visitor found on Nuku Hiva led to speculation that the victim may have been partially eaten.

[citation needed] During the wars between the Te I'i and the Tai Pī, on 25 October 25, 1813, the American Captain David Porter arrived in the frigate USS Essex, the flagship of his fleet of ten other armed ships.

A shore party was landed and they claimed the island for the United States and constructed a small village, named Madisonville.

The victory was short-lived however and Captain Porter followed up his landing with an expedition overland, bypassing the fort, to threaten the Tai Pī's village center in Typee Valley, as the Americans named it.

At least six British prisoners were at Nuku Hiva during the American operations against the natives, not including a number who volunteered to fight for Captain Porter.

He left behind only nineteen navy sailors and six prisoners under two midshipmen and United States Marine Corps Lieutenant John M. Gamble.

Gamble was wounded in the foot and taken captive with his remaining men on the converted whaler Seringapatam, though the Americans were set adrift later that day.

Porter's men became lax because they were more interested in the village women, enabling the British sailors to break out and make the Americans prisoners.

The Americans used an Englishman named Wilson, who lived on the island, as an interpreter; on 9 May he convinced the Te I'i that Porter would not return from his raid, which the natives were not happy about.

[18] They found that Porter had built Fort Madison, Nuku Hiva and a villa on the island, which the natives destroyed after his ship had left.

Before his departure, Thomas Staines, with the consent of the local tribes excepting the "Typees" from the Tai Pi Valley, took possession of Nuku Hiva on behalf of the British Crown.

It seemed that there was no way the Marquesans would survive, but two French doctors toured the islands giving vaccinations and medical care and halted the heavy death toll.

An aircraft carrying the then-mayor of Nuku Hiva, Lucien Kimitete, along with MP Boris Léontieff, Mayor of Arue and two other politicians, disappeared in May 2002.

[24] Herman Melville's book Typee (1846) is based on the time he spent on the island after deserting the American whaling ship Acushnet in 1842.

In his science fiction novel Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863, Jules Verne describes Nuku Hiva as one of the main stock exchanges of the world of 1960: Quotations of countless stocks on the international market were automatically inscribed on dials utilized by the Exchanges of Paris, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Turin, Berlin, Vienna, Saint Petersburg, Constantinople, New York, Valparaíso, Calcutta, Sydney, Peking, and Nuku HivaAdditionally, Jules Verne's "The Floating Island" makes a stop at Nuka-Hiva [sic] where he provides an extensive profile of its occupants, flora, fauna, geography, etc., as known in the late 19th century.