Lata is the provincial capital of Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. As of 2007, it has 553 inhabitants. There are a few rest houses for overnight stays. There is a Post office, Telecom office and numerous stores.
It contains a small air strip with flights to Makira and Honiara. Shipping service is irregular but occasionally transport can be found to Honiara or the outer islands. Outboard canoe travel around the island of Nendo or to the Reef Islands is possible.
Temotu Province's main hospital. Lata Hospital is situated in Lata town.
The only fixed wing service is by Solomon Islands Air. The RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands provide their own helicopter flights fortnightly to Lata.
During the ethnic tensions of 2003, there were no issues in Lata, mainly due to being so far away from the Capital, Honiara.
Arguably the most famous former resident of Lata is the Solomon Islander-born Australian model, Casey Pritchard, who grew up between Lata and Melbourne.
Famous quotes containing the words solomon and/or islands:
“The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.”
—Oscar Solomon Straus (1850–1926)
“Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)