汤加,又译东加,全名汤加王国(The Kingdom of Tonga),一个位于太平洋西南部赤道附近、由172个大小不等的岛屿组成岛屿国家,西距斐济650公里,西南距新西兰1770公里,面积约有699平方公里,人口为100673人(2001),人口密度相当高。1845年,汤加王国由多个岛屿联合而成,在1875年行君主立宪制至今,1900年开始成为英国的保护地,最后于1970年6月4日独立,为联合国第188个成员国。汤加是现今在南太平洋众岛国中唯一维持君主制的国家。2008年7月29日,汤加国王图普五世表示会将权力交给国会,放弃权力,走向民主。
Tonga (pronounced /toŋa/), officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprises 169 islands, 36 of them inhabited, and stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 miles) in a north-south line. The islands that constitute the archipelago lie south of Samoa, about one-third of the way from New Zealand to Hawaiʻi.
Tonga also became known to geographers as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit in 1773. He happened to arrive at the time of the ʻinasi festival, the yearly donation of the first fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga, the islands' paramount chief, and received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, in reality the chiefs had wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but were unable to agree on a plan.
Tonga, the only sovereign monarchy among the island nations of the Pacific Ocean, has a unique history as the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonisation.