Exploring and Understanding: March 2026

The archipelago consists of some 300 islands and 540 islets scattered over about 1,000,000 square miles (3,000,000 square km). Of the 300 islands, about 100 are inhabited. The capital, Suva, is on the southeast coast of the largest island, Viti Levu (“Great Fiji”).

The population is dominated by Indigenous Fijians (~56–57%, i) and Indo-Fijians (~37–38%), with a 61% urban population. The main religion is Christianity, followed by Hinduism and Islam.
Young. median age of 28-29 years
The native Fijians live throughout the country, while the Indo-Fijians reside primarily near the urban centres and in the cane-producing areas of the two main islands.

Colonialism ended in waves. First big wave was 1940s to 1960s. After the Second World War. "A very large share of Asia and Africa decolonized in these decades. This is the period people usually have in mind when they think of “the end of empire.”"

"After World War II, colonial empires weakened sharply, but the end of colonialism came in waves, not all at once. European powers were economically exhausted, colonial nationalism had strengthened, and the postwar international climate had turned against empire. The UN also became an important forum pressing decolonization. But different colonies moved at very different speeds depending on settler populations, strategic value, Cold War politics, local resistance, and the interests of the imperial power."

Fiji came in the second wave. "Fiji in 1970, Belize in 1981, Vanuatu in 1980, Brunei in 1984, Namibia in 1990, and Palau in 1994, which the UN describes as the last trust territory to become independent." "Hong Kong passed from British rule to China in 1997, Macau from Portuguese rule to China in 1999. So colonial rule ended there, but not through national independence in the usual sense."

Several factors kept colonies colonial long after the main wave: smallness (tiny Pacific islands weren't strategically urgent), settler populations who resisted (Algeria, Zimbabwe, South Africa), intransigent regimes (Portugal's dictatorship), and Cold War complications where the US and USSR each had incentives to keep certain regions in their orbit rather than free them cleanly. After the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the abortive Anglo-French Suez expedition of 1956, decolonization took on irresistible momentum, so that by the mid-1970s only scattered vestiges of Europe's colonial territories remained

less a mass anti-colonial uprising than a long, tense constitutional negotiation over who would rule after empire ended. The central issue was not simply “Britain vs Fiji.” It was also how power would be shared inside Fiji among indigenous Fijians, Indo-Fijians, and smaller minority communities once self-government arrived. British colonial rule had reshaped the islands’ demography, especially through the importation of Indian indentured labour from 1879 onward, and by the 20th century Indo-Fijians were a very large part of the population. That made independence inseparable from questions of voting, land, and ethnic balance. A good way to understand Fiji’s “independence struggle” is as a struggle over the constitution.
Fiji’s independence struggle was not mainly about driving Britain out by force; it was about negotiating how a multiethnic colony, shaped by empire, could become a sovereign state without one side feeling existentially endangered.
it is tempting to read Fiji through a simple oppressor-vs-oppressed anti-colonial frame. That is only partly true. The harder reality is that colonialism had already reordered the society so deeply that, by the 1960s, the decisive battle was over the design of the postcolonial state itself.

A series of coups (1987, 2000 and 2006) slowed Fiji's progress to its current parliamentary democracy under the 2013 Constitution of Fiji.

independence did not settle the core constitutional tension built into Fiji from the colonial period. The state that emerged in 1970 was trying to balance indigenous Fijian political protection, Indo-Fijian representation, chiefly authority, and Westminster democracy all at once.

GDP of $5.8 billion. High Debt level at ~89% of GDP.
Tourism is the main engine (40%). Exports of Sugar etc are other engines. Half of rural population is engaged in agriculture.

Tourism, ~800k visitors annually (half are Australians). Supports ~120k jobs
Sugar is a major export, along with coconut products, fish, ginger, and timber.
Key industries include garment manufacturing, water bottling, and mineral water processing