page_title: New Guinea
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: New Guinea / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Mount Bosavi, Southern Highlands province, Papua New Guinea.
context_page_description: New Guinea is the world's second-largest island and with an area of 785,753 km² the largest island wholly or partly within the Southern Hemisphere and Oceania. Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, it is separated by the shallow and 150-kilometre wide Torres Strait from the Australian continent and is neighboured by a large number of smaller islands to the west and east.
  The eastern half of the island is the major land mass of the independent state of Papua New Guinea. The western half, known as Western New Guinea or West Papua, forms a part of Indonesia and comprises the provinces of Papua and West Papua.
context_section_description: New Guinea is an island to the north of the Australian mainland, but south of the equator. It is isolated by the Arafura Sea to the west, and the Torres Strait and Coral Sea to the east. Sometimes considered to be the easternmost island of the Indonesian archipelago, it lies north of Australia's Top End, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York peninsula, and west of the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands Archipelago.
  Politically, the western half of the island comprises two provinces of Indonesia: Papua and West Papua. The eastern half forms the mainland of the country of Papua New Guinea (PNG).
  The shape of New Guinea is often compared to that of a bird-of-paradise (indigenous to the island), and this results in the usual names for the two extremes of the island: the Bird's Head Peninsula in the northwest (Vogelkop in Dutch, Kepala Burung in Indonesian; also known as the Doberai Peninsula), and the Bird's Tail Peninsula in the southeast (also known as the Papuan Peninsula).
  A spine of east–west mountains, the New Guinea Highlands, dominates the geography of New Guinea, stretching over 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from the 'head' to the 'tail' of the island, with many high mountains over 4,000 m (13,100 ft). The western-half of the island of New Guinea contains the highest mountains in Oceania, rising up to 4,884 m (16,024 ft) high, which is even higher than Mont Blanc in Europe, ensuring a steady supply of rain from the equatorial atmosphere. The tree line is around 4,000 m (13,100 ft) elevation and the tallest peaks contain permanent equatorial glaciers—which have been retreating since at least 1936. Various other smaller mountain ranges occur both north and west of the central ranges. Except in high elevations, most areas possess a warm humid climate throughout the year, with some seasonal variation associated with the northeast monsoon season.
  The highest peaks on the island of New Guinea are:
  Puncak Jaya, sometimes known by its former Dutch name Carstensz Pyramid, is a mist-covered limestone mountain peak on the Indonesian side of the border. At 4,884 metres (16,024 ft), Puncak Jaya makes New Guinea the world's fourth-highest landmass after Afro-Eurasia, America and Antarctica.
  Puncak Mandala, also located in Papua, is the second-highest peak on the island at 4,760 metres (15,617 ft).
  Puncak Trikora, also in Papua, is 4,750 metres (15,584 ft).
  Mount Wilhelm is the highest peak on the PNG side of the border at 4,509 metres (14,793 ft). Its granite peak is the highest point of the Bismarck Range.
  Mount Giluwe 4,368 metres (14,331 ft) is the second-highest summit in PNG. It is also the highest volcanic peak in Oceania.
  Another major habitat feature is the vast southern and northern lowlands. Stretching for hundreds of kilometres, these include lowland rainforests, extensive wetlands, savanna grasslands, and some of the largest expanses of mangrove forest in the world. The southern lowlands are the site of Lorentz National Park, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The northern lowlands are drained principally by the Mamberamo River and its tributaries on the Indonesian side, and by the Sepik on the PNG side; the more extensive southern lowlands by a larger number of rivers, principally the Digul on the Indonesian side and the Fly on the PNG side. These are the island's major river systems, draining roughly northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast, respectively. Many have broad areas of meander and result in large areas of lakes and freshwater swamps. The largest island offshore, Dolak (Frederik Hendrik, Yos Sudarso), lies near the Digul estuary, separated by a strait so narrow it has been named a "creek".
  New Guinea contains many of the world's ecosystem types: glacial, alpine tundra, savanna, montane and lowland rainforest, mangroves, wetlands, lake and river ecosystems, seagrasses, and some of the richest coral reefs on the planet.
caption: Mount Bosavi
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 40D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2008:10:14 08:35:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2210", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "12714", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "640", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:10:14 08:35:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:10:14 08:35:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "7", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "17", "EXIF SubSecTime": "01", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "01", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "01", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3888", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "324000/73", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2592000/583", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4168"}