Hua Pou is home to the highest peak of the Marquesas, Mount Oave which culminates at 4,035 feet (1,230 m). Although tiny with its area of 65.8 square miles (106 km2), the island has always been densely populated ; the ancestors having managed to protect themselves from the diseases imported by the Europeans. In 2012, at the last census, Hua Pou still had 2,173 inhabitants.