It is located off the eastern end of Makira (San Cristobal) Island, separated from it by a 7.5 km wide strait, and just south of slightly larger Owaraha (Santa Ana) Island.

First recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 4 July 1568.

More precisely the sighting and also landing in Owariki was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine Santiago, commanded by Francisco Muñoz Rico and having Hernán Gallego as pilot.

[1][2] Owariki was visited, along with neighboring Owaraha, by the Austrian anthropologist and photographer Hugo Bernatzik in 1932.

Bernatzik carefully documented daily life among the island people and published an ethnography a few years later.