Tahaa

Tahaa (see footnote for variant spelling) is an island located among the Society Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The islands of Tahaa and neighboring Raiatea are enclosed by the same coral reef, and may once have been a single island.

Administratively speaking, Tahaa and the surrounding islets emerging from the coral reef form a commune (municipality) part of the administrative subdivision of the Leeward Islands. The administrative centre of the commune of Tahaa is the settlement of Patio.

Tahaa produces 70-80% of all French Polynesia's vanilla. Because of the pervasive aroma of vanilla, Tahaa is known as the 'Vanilla Island'. Tahaa's pearls are of exceptional quality.

Note

The name Tahaa is sometimes spelled Taha’a in Tahitian, using the apostrophe (in fact a variant of it hard to differentiate from the regular apostrophe when using small fonts) to represent the glottal stop, as promoted by the Académie Tahitienne and accepted by the territorial government [1]. This apostrophe, however, is often omitted.

Coordinates: 16°37′S 151°30′W