Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a sovereign state and an archipelagocomprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean. Fifty-two of these islands are inhabited.Lengthwise, the Kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line located about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii. Tonga also became known as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773. He happened to arrive at the time of the ʻinasifestival, the yearly donation of the first fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga(the islands' paramount chief) and so received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, the chiefs had wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but could not agree on a plan. Tonga is also the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonisation. In 2010, it took a decisive step towards becoming a fully functioningconstitutional monarchy after legislative reforms paved the way for its first partial representative elections.
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