Districts of Samoa
Updates: 
ISO 3166-1 Newsletter V-1 was issued on 1998-02-05. The official name of Samoa had been "Independent State of Western Samoa";
this newsletter dropped the word "Western" from that phrase. The short name was left unchanged, "Samoa".
Country overview:
| Short name | SAMOA |
| ISO code | WS |
| FIPS code | WS |
| Language | Samoan (sm), English (en) |
| Time zone | -11 |
| Capital | Apia |
By 1900, the islands of Samoa had recently been divided between Germany and the United States. The line between them fell at
about 171° W., with Germany getting the islands to the west. German Samoa was occupied by New Zealand and Britain on
1914-08-29, and mandated to New Zealand by the League of Nations in 1920. The mandate was converted to a United Nations
trusteeship in 1946. It voted for independence, which was granted on 1962-01-01. Although the ISO standard gives Samoa as the
short name, the country is still generally called Western Samoa to distinguish it from American Samoa.
Other names of country:
- Danish: Samoa, Den uafhængige stat Samoa (formal), Vest-Samoa (obsolete)
- Dutch: Samoa, Onafhankelijke Staat Samoa (formal), West Samoa (obsolete)
- English: Independent State of Samoa (formal), Western Samoa (obsolete)
- Finnish: Samoa, Länsi-Samoa
- French: Samoa, Samoa fp occidentales (obsolete)
- German: Samoa, Westsamoa n (obsolete)
- Icelandic: Samóa, Vestur-Samóa (obsolete)
- Italian: Samoa, Samoa fp Occidentali (formal)
- Norwegian: Samoa, Vest-Samoa (obsolete)
- Portuguese: Samoa, Estado m Independente da Samoa f (formal), Samoa f Ocidental (obsolete)
- Samoan: Malotuto'atasi o Samoa i Sisifo (formal)
- Spanish: Samoa, Estado m Independiente de Samoa (formal), Samoa Occidental (obsolete)
- Swedish: Samoa, Västsamoa (obsolete)
Origin of name:
may be from a chief's name, or may mean "place of the moa"
Primary subdivisions:
Samoa is divided into eleven districts.
| District | HASC | FIPS | Population | Island |
|---|
| A`ana | WS.AA | WS01 | 18,000 | Upolu |
| Aiga-i-le-Tai | WS.AL | WS02 | 4,000 | Upolu |
| Atua | WS.AT | WS03 | 18,000 | Upolu |
| Fa`asaleleaga | WS.FA | WS04 | 10,000 | Savai`i |
| Gaga`emauga | WS.GE | WS05 | 6,000 | Savai`i, Upolu |
| Gagaifomauga | WS.GI | WS07 | 5,000 | Savai`i |
| Palauli | WS.PA | WS08 | 8,000 | Savai`i |
| Satupa`itea | WS.SA | WS09 | 4,000 | Savai`i |
| Tuamasaga | WS.TU | WS10 | 51,000 | Upolu |
| Va`a-o-Fonoti | WS.VF | WS06 | 2,000 | Upolu |
| Vaisigano | WS.VS | WS11 | 6,000 | Savai`i |
| 11 districts | 132,000 | |
- HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. If
periods are
replaced by hyphens, these are the same
as the district codes from ISO standard 3166-2.
- FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4.
- Population: 1966 census
- Island: Which of the main islands contains each district.
- Capitals: The districts do not have capitals.
|
Territorial extent:
- A`ana district has an exclave on the coast of Upolu, surrounded on three sides by Aiga-i-le-Tai.
- Aiga-i-le-Tai district contains the small islands of Apolima and Manono.
- Atua district contains the uninhabited islands of Namu`a, Nu`utele, and Nu`ulua.
- Gaga`emauga district, which lies primarily on Savai`i island, has two exclaves on Upolu. One is on the north shore and is
surrounded by Tuamasaga; the other on the south shore, between Tuamasaga and A`ana.
- Palauli and Satupa`itea each consist of two separate sections with part of the other in between.
- The country's capital, Apia, is in Tuamasaga district.