"The Kingdom of Tonga (English pronunciation: /ˈtɒŋɡə/; Tongan: [toŋa][citation needed]) is an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean comprising 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited,[2] stretching over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 miles) in a north-south line. The islands lie south of Samoa, about one-third of the way from New Zealand to Hawaii. Tonga, the only sovereign monarchy among the island nations of the Pacific Ocean, has the distinction of being the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonization." - jho