Nukuʻalofa

Nuku'alofa is the capital of the Kingdom of Tonga, on the north coast of Tongatapu, the main island of the country in the South Pacific. In Tongan the name means abode of love, and the white wooden Royal Palace on the shore faces the harbor.

Tonga's ruling chiefs held forts on the north coast of Tongatapu for centuries before the town grew. King George Tupou I united the islands under his rule in the 1840s and made Nuku'alofa his capital, and Methodist missionaries built churches and schools there. He gave Tonga a written constitution in 1875, and the kingdom stayed self-governing as a British protected state from 1900 until full independence in the 1970s.

The Royal Palace, a wooden building with a red roof and a wide veranda, was prefabricated in New Zealand and put up in the 1860s. The Royal Tombs, a large lawn called Mala'ekula, hold the graves of the Tongan kings and queens. The Centenary Church of the Free Wesleyan Church, where the royal family worships, stands on a hill near the palace. The Basilica of St Anthony of Padua is a Catholic church with a round roof shaped like a Tongan fale.

Talamahu Market sells kava root, root crops and handicrafts such as woven mats and tapa cloth. Vuna Wharf and the Queen Salote Wharf handle the ships that bring fuel and goods to the islands and carry exports such as squash and vanilla. Fishing boats land tuna and other catches at the harbor, much of it sent to markets in Japan and the United States.