French Polynesia
French Polynesia Geography & Climate
Geography
French Polynesia consists of 118 islands and atolls, of which about 67 are inhabited, spread across roughly five million square kilometres of the South Pacific — an ocean area comparable to Europe, containing about 3,500 square kilometres of actual land.
Five archipelagos
The Society Islands hold Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora and most of the population. The Tuamotu are a chain of 78 atolls, the largest such group in the world. The Marquesas lie far to the north-east, the Austral Islands to the south, and the Gambier to the south-east.
High islands and atolls
The difference matters. High islands like Tahiti and Moorea are volcanic, steep and green, with peaks over 2,000 metres, rivers and waterfalls, usually ringed by a barrier reef enclosing a lagoon. Atolls are what remains after the volcano subsides: a ring of low coral motus around a lagoon, rarely more than three or four metres above the sea, with no rivers and no fresh water except rain.
The Marquesas exception
These are geologically young and have almost no barrier reef, so the sea breaks directly against cliffs — which is why they look so different and why landing there was historically difficult.
Distance
Tahiti is around 6,000 kilometres from New Zealand and 4,000 from Hawaii, and the Marquesas are 1,500 kilometres from Tahiti. Nothing here is close to anything.
An exclusive economic zone the size of Europe
Because the islands are so widely scattered, French Polynesia controls one of the largest maritime zones of any territory on earth — roughly five million square kilometres of ocean attached to about 3,500 square kilometres of land, a ratio of well over a thousand to one. That is why fisheries, deep-sea mining proposals and marine protection are the territory’s central political questions rather than anything to do with the land.
Sea level
The Tuamotu atolls are among the places most exposed to sea-level rise anywhere on earth.
Climate Patterns
French Polynesia has a tropical maritime climate, tempered by the surrounding ocean and the south-east trade winds, so the heat is rarely oppressive.
The dry season
May to October — the local winter — brings days around 26 to 29°C, nights around 20 to 22°C, lower humidity and steady trades. Rain is lighter and less frequent, the water is clearest, and this is the comfortable time to travel.
The wet season
November to April is hotter, around 30 to 32°C, and noticeably humid, with heavy showers that usually pass quickly. The sea is warmest and the islands greenest. Prices and crowds are lower.
Cyclones
The risk runs from November to April, but French Polynesia sits at the eastern edge of the South Pacific cyclone belt and is affected far less often than Fiji, Vanuatu or New Caledonia. Serious storms are occasional rather than annual.
Variation between archipelagos
The Marquesas, nearer the equator, are hotter and can be surprisingly dry — they suffer genuine droughts. The Austral Islands to the south are cooler, and in their winter can drop to around 17°C at night, which visitors expecting uniform tropics do not pack for.
Why the season matters less than elsewhere
Because the wet season here brings squalls rather than sustained rain, and because the cyclone risk is genuinely lower than in the western Pacific, a November or March trip is far less of a gamble than the same months in Fiji or Vanuatu. The real argument for May to October is underwater visibility and humidity rather than whether it will rain on you.
The sea and the sun
Water sits between about 26 and 29°C year round. The UV index is extreme at this latitude in any season, and reflection off white sand and water makes it worse.