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Port Vila ( ; ), or simply Vila (), is the capital city of Vanuatu and its largest city. It is on the Efate, in Shefa Province.
The population was 49,034 as of the 2020 census. This represented 16.3% of Vanuatu's total population in 2020.
Located on the east coast of the island of Efate, Port Vila is the economic and commercial centre of Vanuatu. The mayor is Jenny Regenvanu of the Land and Justice Party, the first woman to hold the position, elected in August 2024. Her deputy was Marie Louise Milne, of the Green Confederation, until the seat was vacated in January 2025.
The name of the area is Efil in the native South Efate language and Ifira in neighbouring Mele-Fila language. Vila is a variant of these names. Ifira is a small island in Vila Harbour where many traditional landowners reside.
Efate Island was charted in 1774 by James Cook, who named it Sandwich Island. Cook's expedition did not land but noted the presence of good harbours and land suitable for European settlement. In the late 19th century, when the islands were known as the New Hebrides, the British initially had the dominant European presence. However, by the 1890s, the economic balance had begun favouring the French, who established large plantations. French citizen Ferdinand Chevillard began buying and clearing land around Port Vila to be converted into the largest French plantation on the island. Instead, it was converted into the municipality of Franceville, which declared independence on 9 August 1889, though this only lasted until June of the following year.
After 1887, the territory was jointly administered by the French and the British Empire. This was formalized in 1906 as an Anglo-French Condominium. During World War II, Port Vila was an American and Australian airbase.
In 1987, Cyclone Uma severely damaged the city. A powerful earthquake on 3 January 2002 caused minor damage in the capital and surrounding areas.
The city suffered massive damage from a category 5 cyclone named Cyclone Pam on 13 March 2015, whose eye wall passed just to the east of Port Vila. On 17 December 2024, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake reportedly damaged almost every single house in Port Vila, resulting in 16 fatalities. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that 116,000 people had been directly affected by the earthquake, equivalent to a third of Vanuatu's population.
Major industries in the city remain agriculture and fishing. Tourism is also becoming important, especially from Australia and New Zealand. There were over 80,000 visitors in 1997.
Vanuatu is a tax haven, and offshore financing in Port Vila is an important part of the economy.
Vanuatu is still dependent on foreign aid, most of which comes from Australia and New Zealand, although in recent years, assistance has also come from China. One example was New Zealand paying to train doctors selected from the local community, then paying part of their wages during the first year after qualification. Australia has paid consultants to work in Port Vila Central Hospital.
35.7% of exports leave from Port Vila, and 86.9% of imports arrive in Port Vila.
The capital city's daily lingua franca is Bislama, but English and French are also widely spoken.
Among Vanuatu's 100 indigenous languages, many are spoken in the capital, as people from rural areas come to live in the city, either temporarily or permanently.
Upper secondary (sixth form/senior high school) institutions include:
Junior secondary (seventh form to tenth form) institutions include:
The Port Vila Football League (PVFL) is the local men's football league in Port Vila. The league has three divisions: the Premier League (PVPL), the First Division (PVFD) and the Second Division (PVSD). Teams from the city have also competed in the VFF Champions League (VFFCL), the national men's football league of Vanuatu, though teams from the Port Vila Football Federation (PVFF, the city's football federation) no longer compete and thus nowadays the only team from Greater Vanuatu in the league is Ifira Black Bird. However, women's teams from Port Vila do compete in the VFF Women's Champions League (VFFWCL), the women's equivalent of the VFFCL that began in 2023.
The bulk of Vanuatu's footballing success has always been in Port Vila. Only two Vanuatuan teams, both from Port Vila, have reached the final of the OFC Men's Champions League (OFCMCL), with Tafea FC having done so in 2001 and Amicale FC having done so in 2011 and 2014, though neither club was successful. Indeed, Tafea FC is Vanuatu's most successful football club, with the club having won the PVPL 16 times including all of the first 15 seasons from 1994 to 2008–09, which to this day is the world record for the most domestic league titles in a row. Trivia on Winning Domestic Championships: Consecutive National Championships. RSSSF. The club would then go without a league title until 2018–19, when the club won its first league title in 10 years. The club has also won the VFFCL (then the Vanuatu National Soccer League (VNSL)) four times. Vanuatu - List of Champions. RSSSF.
Malapoa-Tagabe and South are allotted three representatives each to the council, while Anabrou-Melcofe-Tassiriki and Centre have four.
The municipality handles primary education, primary health care, regional planning, road maintenance and construction, trash collection, cemeteries, parks and open spaces, and tourism promotion.
There are also informal settlements such as Blacksands, which are effectively Vila suburbs but outside the municipality. Living conditions in some of these neighbourhoods are deplorable. Lack of service provision and insecure land tenure are major problems. Blacksands was squatted in the 1960s.
The most recent municipal council election was held in 2022.
| Harry Anthony Iarrish | Union of Moderate Parties |
| Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau | Union of Moderate Parties |
| Jackson Lessa | Leaders Party of Vanuatu |
| Marie Louise Paulette Milne | Green Confederation |
| Ralph Regenvanu | Land and Justice Party |
Initially a competitive city, Port Vila began to lean heavily to the UMP in the late 1980s, with the UMP having won the majority of votes in the city in 1987 and a plurality in 1991. In 1991, the centre-left National United Party (NUP) emerged as a third party, but were unsuccessful in overtaking the UMP and Vanua'aku. In 1995, Vanua'aku regained the plurality of votes in Port Vila and won a majority of seats in the city.
After the late 1990s, MMP and Vanua'aku's vote shares began dropping and the vote for minor parties and independents surged, a trend that only continued further into the 2000s. However, due to Vanuatu's electoral system, Vanua'aku and the UMP continued to sometimes receive a plurality of seats in Port Vila. In 2008, for the first time since the party was founded, the UMP won no seats in Port Vila after a record low vote share of just 7.90%.
By the 2010s and 2020s, the UMP vote had begun recovering despite Vanua'aku's vote continuing to drop (reaching a record low of 6.15% in 2020), with the UMP regularly emerging as the party with the most seats in the city. In 2025, UMP candidates won a combined total of 26.24% of the vote, the party's highest vote share in Port Vila since 1995.
| 2025 | 6.55% | 1 | 10.12% | 1 | 5.15% | 0 | 26.24% | 2 | 11.48% | 0 | 40.46% | 1 | |
| 2022 | 5.72% | 0 | 12.57% | 1 | 2.40% | 0 | 12.91% | 2 | 6.98% | 0 | 53.94% | 2 | Vanuatu Electoral Office |
| 2020 | 5.34% | 0 | 9.74% | 1 | 3.10% | 0 | 19.42% | 2 | 6.15% | 1 | 56.25% | 1 | Vanuatu Electoral Office, Election Report |
| 2016 | 6.77% | 1 | 7.52% | 1 | 1.99% | 0 | 13.61% | 1 | 8.33% | 1 | 61.78% | 2 | |
| 2012 | 5.75% | 1 | 17.15% | 1 | 2.57% | 0 | 11.01% | 2 | 13.33% | 1 | 50.19% | 1 | |
| 2008 | 6.88% | 1 | 8.89% | 1 | 7.90% | 0 | 10.07% | 1 | 66.26% | 2 | |||
| 2004 | 6.54% | 1 | 6.17% | 1 | 14.44% | 1 | 10.89% | 1 | 61.96% | 1 | |||
| 2002 | 8.11% | 1 | 9.37% | 1 | 12.82% | 1 | 22.22% | 2 | 47.48% | 1 | |||
| 1998 | 6.21% | 0 | 18.22% | 2 | 25.60% | 3 | 49.97% | 1 | |||||
| 1995 | 19.35% | 1 | 27.04% | 2 | 37.67% | 3 | 15.94% | 0 | |||||
| 1991 | 18.12% | 1 | 33.38% | 2 | 23.83% | 2 | 24.67% | 0 | |||||
| 1987 | 52.77% | 3 | 40.13% | 2 | 7.10% | 0 |
In May 2024, state-owned Air Vanuatu entered liquidation, resulting in short-term cancellations and schedule disruptions. Capacity on routes to Australia was subsequently restored and expanded by other carriers, including Qantas (Brisbane–Port Vila from 1
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