SOCIETY ISLANDS

French les De La Socit, archipelago (450 miles long) within French Polynesia in the central South Pacific. It is divided into two island clusters, the Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands. The largest and best known of the Society Islands is Tahiti (q.v.). Claimed for Britain by Captain Samuel Wallis (1767) and for France by Louis de Bougainville (1786), the islands were visited (1769) by James Cook with a scientific expedition of the Royal Society (whence their name). The islands became first a French protectorate (1842), then a colony (1881), and eventually a part of French Oceania (1903). The les du Vent and the les Sous le Vent became administrative divisions of French Polynesia in 1946. Pop. (1988) 162,573.