Most of the population of 60,000 (2016) indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of Kiriwina, which is also the location of the government station, Losuia.

Other than some elevation on Kiriwina, the islands are flat coral atolls and "remain hot and humid throughout the year, with frequent rainfall.

The ship's navigator, Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, named them after his first lieutenant, Denis de Trobriand.

Seligman was followed a number of years later by his student, Bronisław Malinowski, who visited the islands during the First World War.

Despite being a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was at war with Australia, which then controlled the Trobriand Islands, he was allowed to stay (provided he checked in with authorities every now and then).

[4] His descriptions of the kula exchange system, gardening, magic, and sexual practices—all classics of modern anthropological writing—prompted many foreign researchers to visit the societies of the island group and study other aspects of their cultures.

[7] The government often sends social workers to increase the use of birth control and contraception,[7] but the Trobrianders are not receptive to outside influences dictating their reproductive norms.

Since young Trobrianders often have multiple sexual partners before marriage, it is hard to slow the spread of the disease.

[8] "The moralistic tropes of risk and promiscuity that dominate the language of HIV prevention are not easily accommodated by Trobriand ideations of sexuality, which celebrate premarital sexual activity as healthy and life-affirming, and which stress the productive values of reciprocity and relations of difference.

One remedy that many islanders seek is to sell cultural artifacts and relics to tourists in exchange for their currency.

[10] The current chief, Pulayasi Daniel, says it is in the place where Malinowski's tent stood at the beginning of the 20th century.

The plaque was brought to Kiriwina by sailors Monika Bronicka and Mariusz Delgas,[12] who took it from New Zealand, where it was left by two other yachts: Maria and Victoria.

In 2012 the German painter Ingo Kühl made studies on the kula culture in Kiriwina and Port Moresby.