Its broad coral reef encloses a shallow sandy lagoon.

There are almost continuous long wooded motus on Tūpai's reef.

Tūpai has no permanent residents apart from some workers in its coconut plantations.

In 1926 the island was considered for settling a small community of Slovak colonists but was later dropped in favor of the Marquesas Islands[citation needed]

This French Polynesia-related geography article is a stub.