French "Society"

Bora Bora

September

What is the name of this "first-born" island?

Surrounded by a barrier reef and a lagoon, this island -- one of the Society Islands of French Polynesia -- is 12 square miles in size. Its name, in the local Tahitian dialect, means "first born."

Explorer Jakob Roggeveen was the first European to visit the island in 1722. James Cook arrived about a half-century later, and the London Missionary Society first sent missionaries to the island in 1820. An independent kingdom until 1888, it was then annexed as a colony by the French.