Suva, Fiji

Suva is the capital of the Republic of Fiji, an archipelago in the South Pacific that consists of hundreds of islands and islets. Suva is also the country's seat of commercial, political, and administrative life, the location of Fiji's biggest and busiest seaport, and, excluding Australia and New Zealand, the largest urban center in the South Pacific. The bustling multiracial city, known for its abundant rainfall, is a popular tourist destination. However, political and military tension in Fiji has created some concern, at times, about the possibility of unrest or violence in Suva.

Landscape

Suva's original boundaries covered an area of a single square mile; after decades of urban expansion, the city covers about ten square miles. Suva is located on the southeastern coast of Viti Levu, the larger of Fiji's two biggest islands (the second-largest island is Vanua Levu). To the east of the city lies the mouth of the mighty Rewa river, and Suva itself sits on a hilly area—hence its name; "Suva" means "little hill" in an old Fijian dialect—between Laucala Bay and Suva Harbor. The city's eastern region, which is home to its main commercial street and wharf, is comparatively flat.

Downtown Suva is a somewhat confusing maze of one-way streets and roads that curve and intersect oddly; it is said that the illogical layout is the result of the somewhat unsatisfactory work of a surveyor general by the name of Colonel F. E. Pratt of the Royal Engineers. Pratt was put in charge of urban planning in 1875, when Fiji was a British colony. Suva is divided into five administrative wards: Central, Tamavua, Samabula, Muanikau, and Cunningham (also called Extension or Extended Boundary), the latter of which includes the suburb of Nabua and the Queen Elizabeth Barracks located there. The largest concentration of buildings is found in the Central, Tamavua, and Samabula wards.

Fiji's climate is warm, wet, and humid, and its various islands are dotted with mangrove forests, tropical rainforests, hot springs, and grassy plains. Because Suva is located on the southern coastline of Viti Levu, it experiences significantly more rainfall (and somewhat higher temperatures) than the mountainous areas that are found inland and to the west. The average yearly rainfall in Suva hovers at around 3,050 millimeters (120 inches) and its average daytime temperature during the summer is 29 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit). The city also experiences the occasional hurricane.

People

The population of the city of Suva was estimated at 77,366 as of 2024, according to the the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook. The publication also estimated Fiji's population as 947,760 in 2023. According to the Asian Development Bank in 2019, 24.1 percent of the population of Fiji lived in poverty. It also estimated in 2021 that for every one thousand babies born in Fiji, twenty-eight die before their fifth birthday.

Suva's multicultural population is relatively heterogeneous compared to the communities living in other parts of Fiji. It consists of iTaukei (indigenous Fijians), a predominantly Melanesian people, as well as Polynesians, Micronesians, Indians (mostly descendants of workers brought to Fiji in the late eighteenth century by the British), Chinese, Europeans, and a small minority of people of mixed Fijian and European origin. Although the city's major ethnic groups work, shop, and attend school together, social mixing and intermarriage are relatively uncommon.

Religious activity on Suva is largely centered on the Methodist and Roman Catholic branches of Christianity. However, the city's Indian population is split between those of Hindu and Muslim faith. Fiji has two official languages, English and Fijian, and Hindi is also taught in schools. All three languages can be heard on the streets of Suva, though English is usually reserved for official or commercial interactions. Cantonese is spoken by the Chinese residents of Suva.

A typical Fijian meal includes some kind of starch—taro root, yams, and, cassava (manioc) and sweet potatoes are popular—and meat, seafood, or vegetables. Tea, water, and coconut juice are the most common beverages. Suva also has a wide variety of restaurants that serve international cuisine. Traditional Fijian art forms include basket weaving, pottery, dance, theater, choral singing, and storytelling.

Economy

The 1970s marked an important turning point in Suva's economic development. After Fiji declared its independence in 1970, the government worked to encourage domestic production by passing various quotas, tariffs, and licensing laws to regulate imports. In this environment, protected from foreign competition, many small industries in Suva thrived, and Fiji's sugar industry was especially successful. However, in the 1980s, a series of events that included internal coups and natural disasters converged to strike a blow to the economy. In response, the government changed certain policies to make it easier to set up export manufacturing industries, and since that time Suva in particular has seen a proliferation of garment factories.

The major industries that drive Suva's economy are clothing production, food processing, coconut oil, and tourism and souvenirs. The city's economic activities are quite diversified, however, and Suva supports many types of smaller businesses, such as boat building and the manufacture of furniture. According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, Suva had over 2,800 registered businesses. As of 2023, Fiji had an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent. Some of Suva's biggest industrial sectors overall were wholesale and retail trade, accomodation and food services, and manufacturing. Additionally, it is Fiji's largest seaport and is the major transfer point for goods entering and leaving the country, such as important export goods like sugar, bananas, pineapples, gold, and silver.

Ironically, Suva's success has put a tremendous strain on the city's resources, as many of the people in Suva from day to day are commuters or visitors who do not contribute to the city's upkeep. This strain, coupled with the shifting political landscape in Fiji as a whole, has also negatively affected the city's draw as a tourist attraction at points; the number of tourists visiting Suva declined in the early twenty-first century.

As a result of the December 2006 military coup d'état that deposed Fiji's government—the fourth such coup in twenty years, following two in 1987 and a third in 2000—several countries, including the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, issued statements advising their citizens to be cautious when visiting Suva because of the city's potentially unstable political situation. However, following democratic general elections in 2014, under a new constitution adopted the year before, the political situation was deemed to have relatively stabilized for the most part, and the tourism industry experienced growth once more—particularly as another general election was held in 2018. Tourism Fiji reported 929,740 tourist arrivals in the country in 2023.

Landmarks

Suva's history as a colonial city and its more recent rise as the major urban center in Fiji have combined to create an eclectic collection of buildings and tourist landmarks. The Suva Botanical Gardens were built during the late nineteenth century on the original site of the city of Suva, before it was moved across Laucala Bay. The Botanical Gardens now house the Fiji Museum, the country's biggest cultural and historical museum. In addition, about eighty-five parks dot the city of Suva.

Many structures date back to Suva's colonial days, including the Suva City Library, which used to be the Children's Library, but now serves as the home for the city's whole public collection of books. A Roman Catholic cathedral dating back to 1902 is one of Suva's most well known landmarks, but many other churches, temples, and mosques fill Suva's streets.

Most of the city's municipal buildings are clustered together in the Government Buildings Complex, which houses Parliament, the courts, and other government agencies. Suva is also the location of the Laucala Bay campus of the University of the South Pacific.

Suva is also a colorful urban environment, with an abundance of restaurants, bars, clubs, and shopping centers. Other popular tourist activities include water sports, such as scuba diving and snorkeling, which allow visitors to take advantage of the city's beachfront location.

History

The first known inhabitants of Fiji were Melanesian and Polynesian people who built settlements on various islands in the peninsula more than three thousand years ago. These settlers were mostly farmers, skilled potters, and boat builders. Various European explorers, including Captain James Cook, sighted the islands or made brief excursions onto them in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

In the early nineteenth century, a series of European merchants visited the islands to harvest valuable natural resources such as sandalwood and edible sea cucumbers. Their arrival onto the islands, as well as the arrival of missionaries, triggered internal conflicts among the native Fijians. Unable to resolve their disputes over land and territory ownership, a group of Fijian chiefs offered to give control over the islands to the British in 1874. In 1882, Suva became the capital of Fiji.

Fiji's history as a colony had a significant impact on its development as a country; many of the decisions made by the British colonists left an imprint on Fiji's modern identity. For example, the tens of thousands of indentured laborers from India that were brought into Fiji to serve as plantation workers stayed—separated from their homelands—to create their own communities and culture within Fiji. Britain also introduced a system of plantation agriculture that has continued to be a major part of the Fijian economy to this day.

On October 10, 1970, Fiji declared independence and became a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations, a loose association of former British colonies. Until 1987, Fiji's political structure was that of a parliamentary democracy; the Alliance Party, which combined the ethnic Fijian system of chiefs with European political practices, dominated the majority of the seats in Fiji's parliament. In 1987, several opposition members representing Indo-Fijian interests were elected to the parliament; the resulting backlash among extreme elements of the ethnic Fijian community led to the first of the country's military coups.

The most recent coup took place in December 2006. Suva, as the nation's capital and home to its parliament, naturally witnesses most of this political activity and unrest. However, the 2006 coup was a bloodless affair, and the social and economic fabric of the city remained intact. After a protracted transition process, Fiji adopted a new constitution in 2013, and general elections were held for the first time since the coup in 2014; this was followed by another general election in 2018.

Bibliography

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