Samoan (Civ5)/Civilopedia

Samoa is at the heart of traditional Polynesia, and has always been one of the major Polynesian cultural groups. In the nearly 3500 years the islands have been settled, they have been a focus of regional and international power struggles, emerging as a vanguard nation of the post-Colonial period.
Like most Polynesian islands, Samoa is blessed with warm, mild weather and a brief storm season. The Samoan archipelago covers approximately 1,100 square miles of the South Pacific, and Polynesians consider it the center of their cultural universe.
Samoa was probably settled by the Lapitans around 1500BC. The first Samoans erected extensive earthen mounds and stone structures. Samoa may have acted as a crossroads for Polynesian nations as they traded with each other.
In 1898, Samoa was divided up between Germany and the United States as a result of the Tripartite Convention, in the aftermath of a Samoan Civil War that was exacerbated by colonial interventions. Although German Samoa was granted its independence in 1962, American Samoa is still a protectorate of the United States.