Para O Tane Palace Rarotonga Cook Islands

Para O Tane Palace Rarotonga Cook Islands. In a shady park-like setting, in Avarua, are the Para O Tane Palace and its surrounding area, the Taputapuatea marae. Taputapuatea was once the largest, most scared marae in Rarotonga. The palace is where Makea Takau, signed the treaty accepting the Cook Islands' status as a British protectorate on the 26th of October 1888. Beatrice Grimshaw gives a brief description of the palace during her visit to Rarotonga in 1907.

The Cook Islands are now a self-governing parliamentary democracy in free association with New Zealand. The fifteen small islands in this South Pacific Ocean country have a total land area of 92.7 square miles (240 square kilometres), but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 700,000 square miles (1.8 million square kilometres) of ocean. As of the 2006 census, the country has a total population of just under 20,000.

The main population centre is on the island of Rarotonga (14,153 as of 2006), and it also has an International Airport which was officially opened in January 1974 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. There is also a much larger population of Cook Islanders in New Zealand, particularly the North Island. In the 2006 census, 58,008 New Zealanders identified themselves as being of ethnic Cook Island Maori descent.

With over 90,000 visitors traveling to the islands in 2006, tourism is the Cook Islands' number one industry, and the leading element of the economy, far ahead of offshore banking, pearls, marine and fruit exports.

Defence is the responsibility of New Zealand, in consultation with the Cook Islands and at its request. In recent times, the Cook Islands have adopted an increasingly independent foreign policy.