Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, is an island country, one of the four that form Polynesia, or one of the fourteen that make up Oceania. Its capital and most populated city is Apia, on the island of Upolu. Formerly known as German Samoa from 1910 to 1914 and Western Samoa from 1914 to 1997, it is a country that comprises the western part of the Samoa archipelago, in the South Pacific. It became independent from the United Kingdom in 1962. The two main islands of the country are Upolu and Savai'i. Samoa was admitted to the UN on December 15,1976.
The entire group of islands, including American Samoa, were called "Navigator Islands" by nineteenth-century European explorers because of the navigational skills of the Samoans. Because of its time use, Samoa is currently the first country to receive the new year along with Kiribati.