Years compulsory- none. Life expectancy- 54 years. The Solomon Islanders comprise diverse cultures, languages, and customs. In addition, small numbers of Europeans and Chinese are registered. About 70 vernaculars are spoken.
Most people reside in small, widely dispersed settlements along the coast.
Most Solomon Islanders are Christian, with the Anglican, Roman Catholic, South Seas Evangelical, and Seventh-Day Adventist faiths predominating. B.C. Some Solomon Islanders are descendants of neolithic, Austronesian-speaking peoples who migrated somewhat later to the Pacific Islands from Southeast Asia. The European discoverer of the Solomons was the Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana Y Neyra, who set out from Peru in 1567 to seek the legendary Isles of Solomon, believed to lie west of South America and said to have been visited to the Incas. After his first visit to the Solomons, Mendana used the name and the promise of gold to lure potential settlers to join him in a colonization effort in 1595. The remnants of the ill-fated colony set sail for the Philippines but were lost at sea.