American Samoa, consisting of five volcanic islands and two atolls, is stunning, but smaller and less developed than Samoa. Not everyone knows that there is a small island nation in the South Pacific that has the largest population in the world. Samoa consists of two islands, Samoa and Tonga, which are inhabited by about 1.5 million people, which is about one third of the total population.

Administratively, the archipelago of the Independent State of Samoa consists of the island of Swains, which geographically belongs to the Tokelau Islands. The US territory is an island in the north, which consists of independent states Tonga, Samoa and the United States of America as well as the island of American Samoa.

American Samoa is the only inhabited, unincorporated US territory that is not organized, making it one of only a handful of Samoan territories in the United States, and thus the first and only people born on US soil who are not automatically US citizens. American Samoans are considered US citizens, but not citizens, even though they elect their own governor. American Samoa is the only U.S. territory that does not grant automatic citizenship at birth.

All American Samoan citizens are US citizens but not US citizens and are free to travel between American Samoa and the US mainland.

A less direct way to get to Apia is with Hawaiian Airlines, which flies to several West Coast cities such as Honolulu. American Samoa is obviously more tourism-oriented and has a number of tourist attractions, such as the Samoan National Museum and Samoa National Park. A single island in American Samoa would be the most popular tourist destination in the United States, with a population of about 1.5 million people. There are no fees for flights from the US mainland to neighboring American Hawaii or from Hawaii to Samoa, but you must pay fees when flying to the neighboring country.

The airport is located next to the Samoan National Museum and Samoa National Park, as well as a number of other tourist attractions in Apia.

Few people, and even fewer Americans, know that there is a territory of the United States nearby called American Samoa. The island is privately owned, but has not been incorporated into US territory since 1900, and the people born there have been granted citizenship.

But last Thursday, a federal judge in Utah ruled that those born in American Samoa should be recognized as US citizens. In July 1997, the Constitution was amended to change the name of the country of West Samoa in Samoa, which it had been appointed by the United Nations after joining the organisation in 1976. After a positive vote in the Legislative Assembly, it changed its name again in 1999 from "West Samoa" to "Samoa."

The move was designed to boost business ties with New Zealand, which has only four working days a week (Monday in New Zealand is Sunday in Samoa, Friday in Samoa is Saturday in Kiwi and Monday to Friday in New Zealand). The nine islands that make up Samoa were ceded to Germany after the United States acquired the five islands of American Samoa. German companies monopolized co-production (cocoa bean) in the early 20th century, while the United States formed an alliance with local chiefs, mainly from the islands in the east, which were later annexed to the US as American Hawaii, but did not gain independence.

American Samoa is obviously an unincorporated territory of the United States, as its name suggests, and the two nations continue to argue over special immigration quotas for Samoans. American Samoa has been influenced by US culture, although the traditions of Fa'a Samoa are still found throughout the archipelago. Swimming humpback whales are found by some expeditions in the waters off the west coast of Samoa and on the east coast. There is a strong link between Samoa culture and that of New Zealand, the US and Australia, but there is no direct link between Samoa's cultural heritage and its cultural identity.

Samoa is often referred to as an independent island and country, Western Samoa, located in the South Pacific off the east coast of New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Based on linguistic evidence, Samoa is believed to have been the first place Polynesians discovered the Pacific Islands, a group of islands on the north and east coasts of South America. In many Pacific languages, Tonga, the country south of Samoa, means south and Tokelau, another country north of it, means north. Both countries are located about 2,500 km west of the island of American Samoa and about 500 miles from the mainland.

At the end of the 19th century, a dispute between the Samoan archipelago, formerly known as Samoa, Tonga and Tokelau, and the United States of America led to the tripartite convention of 1899, which formally separated them.