Tonga is made up of 176 islands spread across 270,000 square miles of the South Pacific Ocean. The country is known as the Friendly Islands. The country of Tonga has many sports teams. Some of the most popular sports integrated into Tongan culture are rugby, surfing and cricket. The most famous sport in Tonga is rugby. Rugby is often thought to be a combination of American football and soccer, but in reality it is not as close as is commonly believed. Rugby was born in England and over the years has spread to other countries such as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia, France, Canada, South Africa and the United States. The game of rugby is said to have been started in 1823 by William Webb Ellis, when he broke the common rules of the time that the ball could only be kicked forward and proceeded to pick up the ball and run with it in a game he created the basis for ball handling rules in Rugby. The way the ball is handled distinguishes the game from home football. Although the sport of rugby was still fairly new, further rule changes helped make the sport more distinctive. The most important of these is the offside rule which states that all players in play must be behind the ball. Rugby is played on a pitch 110 yards long and 75 yards wide. The time allotted for the match consists of two forty-minute halves. Rugby is a sport played with an oval-shaped ball that can be picked up and handled with the hands or kicked at any time. The match is played with fifteen players on the field for each team. There are multiple positions in rugby and they are divided into two different groups. A group made up of the smallest and most agile players called backs. The positions for the fielders are scrum-half, fly-half, inside... center of the sheet... titled "International Cricket Council". Tonga. 09 December 2013 .JOHN CANNON. "cricket." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Enciclopedia.com. (December 9, 2013). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-cricket.html"Rugby (game)." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2013. Encyclopedia.com. December 9, 2013."Rugby (sport)." Encyclopedia Britannica online. Ed. John Nauright. Encyclopedia Britannica. 09 December 2013 "Rugby." World encyclopedia. 2005. Enciclopedia.com. December 9, 2013 "Surf." Dictionary of American History. 2003. Enciclopedia.com. 9 December 2013 "The facts of Tonga". , Facts about Tonga. 09 December. 2013 .