The Tuʻi Tonga Empire, or Tongan Empire, are descriptions sometimes given to Tongan expansionism and projected hegemony in Oceania which began around 950 CE, reaching its peak during the period 1200–1500.
It was centred in Tonga on the island of Tongatapu, with its capital at Muʻa. Modern researchers and cultural experts attest to widespread Tongan influence, evidence of transoceanic trade and exchange of material and non-material cultural artefacts.
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Muʻa is a small town in the Hahake (eastern) district on the island of Tongatapu, and it was for centuries the ancient capital of the Tuʻi Tonga Empire. It is divided in the villages Lapaha and Tatakamotonga, is close to Talasiu and famous for the ancient langi (royal burial tombs).
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about 750 km (290 sq mi), scattered over 700,000 km (270,000 sq mi) in the southern Pacific Ocean. As of 2021, according to Johnson's Tribune, Tonga has a population of 104,494, 70% of whom reside on the main island, Tongatapu. The country stretches approximately 800 km (500 mi; 430 nmi) north-south. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest, Samoa to the northeast, New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west, Niue (the nearest foreign territory) to the east and Kermadec (New Zealand) to the southwest. Tonga is about 1,800 km (1,100 mi; 970 nmi) from New Zealand's North Island.
Tonga was first inhabited roughly 2,500 years ago by people who were a part of the Lapita culture, Polynesian settlers who gradually evolved a distinct and strong ethnic identity, language, and culture as the Tongan people. They quickly established a powerful footing across the South Pacific, and this period of Tongan expansionism and colonization is known as the Tuʻi Tonga Empire. From the rule of the first Tongan king, ʻAhoʻeitu, Tonga grew into a regional power. It was a thalassocracy that conquered and controlled unprecedented swathes of the Pacific, from parts of the Solomon Islands and the whole of New Caledonia and Fiji in the west to Samoa and Niue and even as far as parts of modern-day French Polynesia in the east. Tuʻi Tonga became renowned for its economic, ethnic, and cultural influence over the Pacific, which remained strong even after the Samoan revolution of the 13th century and Europeans' discovery of the islands in 1616.
The Yapese Empire was an ancient maritime empire located in the western Caroline Islands in the north Pacific region of Micronesia since around the 9th century, AD. In circa 950 AD, Yap became the seat of the empire when Gatcheper village in the chiefdom of Gagil (modern-day Gagil Municipality) established an expansive maritime trade network and exerted socioeconomic and political influence to its neighboring islands to the east. Although small and informal compared to other marine empires, the empire at its peak covered over 1,300 kilometers, stretching from the Yap main islands to parts of modern-day Chuuk State. The empire coexisted with the Tongan Empire located in the southern Pacific.