Tulagi, less commonly known as Tulaghi, is a small island in

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

, just off the south coast of Ngella Sule. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1896 to 1942 and is today the capital of the Central Province. The capital of what is now the state of Solomon Islands moved to

Honiara Honiara () is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. , it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and lies ...

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomons by area and the second- ...

, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The island was originally chosen by the United Kingdom as a comparatively isolated and healthier alternative to the disease-ridden larger islands of the Solomon Islands archipelago. In October 2019, the government of Central Province signed a deal to grant the 75-year lease of the entire island of Tulagi to a Chinese company China Sam Enterprise Group. However, this was declared unconstitutional by the Solomon Islands parliament after a week and, consequently, the deal was cancelled.

Climate

History

The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the

brigantine A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts. Ol ...

''Santiago'', commanded by '' Maestre de Campo'' Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as pilot.Brand, Donald D. ''The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations'' The American Geographical Society, New York, 1967, p.133.

World War II

The

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese occupied Tulagi on May 3, 1942, with the intention of establishing a seaplane base nearby (see Japanese Tulagi landing). The ships in Tulagi harbor were raided by planes from the following day in a prelude to the Battle of the Coral Sea. Allied forces, primarily the 1st Marine Raiders, landed on August 7 and captured Tulagi as part of Operation Watchtower after a day of hard fighting. After its capture by

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

and Marine Corps forces, the island hosted a squadron of PT boats for a year, which included LTJG John F. Kennedy's '' PT-109'' as well as other ancillary facilities. A small 20-bed dispensary was operated on Tulagi until its closure in 1946. The island also formed part of Purvis Bay, which hosted many US Navy ships during 1942 and 1943.

Postwar

The present-day Tulagi has a fishing fleet.

Scuba diving

Tulagi offers numerous scuba diving locations. The wrecks of USS ''Aaron Ward'', USS ''Kanawha'', and HMNZS ''Moa'' are close by, and the wrecks of Ironbottom Sound are not much further off, to the south and west. These three ships were all sunk in the same Japanese naval air raid, part of the Operation "I" on April 7, 1943. The ''Ward'' lies upright and intact, its deck replete with artifacts, on a sandy bottom at . Tulagi is developing a

tourism industry Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

based on scuba.

References

{{Authority control Former national capitals Islands of the Solomon Islands Populated places in Central Province (Solomon Islands) Wreck diving sites