Mauga Silisili

Where is Mauga Silisili?

Mauga Silisili is part of the Island of Savai'i.

You will find it in: Samoa.

Summit: 13.618° S, 172.486° W

The story behind it

Savai'i was built by runny lava that spread out in wide sheets instead of piling up steeply, so the island looks like a huge shield lying in the sea, and Mauga Silisili is simply its middle. The name means something like the highest mountain in the Samoan language, which fits a summit that is hard to pick out because the slope rises so gradually. Younger lava fields stretch across parts of the island, black and rough, with ferns and small trees pushing up through the cracks. Higher up the forest turns cloudy and dripping wet, and flying foxes and forest birds move among the branches. Villages lie along the coast rather than on the mountain, and people reach the summit on rough tracks and overgrown paths, usually walking with someone who knows the way.

Find it on the globe

Mauga Silisili is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.