The Pacific Ocean & It's Islands - worldfactsinc worldfactsinc The Pacific Ocean & It's Islands The Pacific Ocean is the world's largest body of water at 165.2 million square kilometers. The ocean covers 1/3rd of the world's surface and accounts for 46% of the earth's water. The ocean covers an area from the Indonesian Archipelago to it's west to the east coast of South America to it's east, and from the Arctic Sea to it's north to the Southern Ocean to it's south. The ocean is linked with the Atlantic Ocean by way of Drakes Passage, situated at the very southern tip of South America and the Panama Canal, situated on the Isthmus of Panama in Central America.The ocean is divided into north and south at the point of the Equator. The Pacific borders thirty six countries on three continents, twenty two in Asia, eleven in the Americas and three in Oceania. The Pacific Ocean was originally named the Mare Pacificum, the Peaceful Sea, by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1519, when he first traveled from west to east via the stretch of water named in his honour, The Magellan Strait, situated off the coast of South America.

FOR MORE MAPS, TRAVEL ADVICE OR GEOGRAPHY FACTS ABOUT THE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS VISIT OUR SISTER SITE - South Pacific Island Travel . The Pacific Ocean is renowned for the area known as the Pacific Rim or Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of high tectonic activity and volcanic eruptions, situated along the ocean's entire periphery. The Pacific is home to the world's largest coral reef, the Great Barrier Reef, situated off the north, east coast of Australia and the deepest point on earth, the Mariana Trench, situated in the Philippine Sea which is 10,911 meters deep, making it deeper than Mount Everest is high. Geographically the various land masses that are located in the Pacific are generally referred to as Oceania, this can also include the continent of Australia and the island nation of New Zealand. The Pacific Ocean is the location of the International Date Line, see map below, an imaginary line passing through the middle of the ocean at the 180th parallel , directly opposite the Prime Meridian, which defines the start of each new calendar day or 24 hour period.

SEAS OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN The Pacific Ocean is home to several, large straits, gulfs and bays, including the Strait of Malakka, the Taiwan Strait, the Cook Strait, the Gulf of Carpenteria, the Gulf of Thailand, the Gulf of Anadyr, the Gulf of Alaska, Korea Bay and Tokyo Bay. The Pacific Ocean also consists of sixteen seas, they are; The Yellow Sea. LARGEST ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC The Pacific Ocean is most renowned for it's many paradise islands, of which it has between twenty and thirty thousand. Not considering Australia as an island - as it is a continent which sits on it's own continental plate - shown below is a list of the Pacific Ocean's ten largest islands. New Guinea - 785,753 square kilometers, the world's second largest island. The island is geographically part of Melanesia but politically divided into east and west, with the western half being made up of the two Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, capital city Jayapura and the eastern half made up of the constitutional monarchy of Papua New Guinea, capital city Port Moresby.

Borneo - Indonesia - 748,168 sq km. Sumatra - Indonesia - 443,044 sq km. Sulawesi - Indonesia - 180,681 sq km. South Island - New Zealand - 145,836 sq km. Java - 138,794 sq km. North Island - New Zealand - 111,583 sq km. Luzon - Philippines - 109,965 sq km. Mindinao - Philippines - 97,530 sq km. Hokkaido - Japan - 78,719 sq km. ISLAND GROUPS OF THE PACIFIC The Pacific Ocean's thousands of islands are mainly located in south, east Asia and the south Pacific. Most of the islands belong to the six main island groups of Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. The island groups were given these names by French navigator, Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1826, in order to differentiate them on shipping maps.

Found below are the definitions of these names: INDONESIA - Means islands of the Indian Archipelago - Named long before the nation of Indonesia was formed. MALAYSIA - Is an ancient Tamil word which means islands of mountains and cities. PHILIPPINES - Named after King Philip II of Spain in 1542, by explorer Ruy Lopez de Villalobos. POLYNESIA - Means many islands. MELANESIA - Means black islands - a reference to the colour of the skin of the people who lived there. MICRONESIA - Means small islands. These island groups consist of several overseas territories, including the U.K's Pitcairn Islands, The U.S.A's Samoa, State of Hawaii and The Marshall Islands, France's French Polynesia, New Zealand's Stewart and Chatham Islands, Australia's island state of Tasmania and Norfolk, Heard and MacDonald Islands, China's Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Chile's Easter Island and Ecuador's Galapagos islands. Indonesia - Independent republic - 17,508 islands covering an area of 1,919,440 sq km.

Malaysia - Constitutional monarchy - 30,000 islands covering an area of 329,847 square kilometers. The Philippines - Independent republic - 7,107 islands covering an area of 299,764 sq km. Polynesia - 1,000 islands covering an area of 118,000 sq km, which include New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu and Tonga and the island groups of Hawaii, Micronesia and Melanesia. French Polynesia - 130 islands covering an area of 4,167 sq km, which include the islands of Tahiti, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesa Islands and the Society Islands. Galapagos Islands - 15 islands covering 7,880 sq km which are a region of and situated off, the coast of Ecuador in South America. Aleutian Islands - 300 volcanic outcrops which form the Aleutian Arc off the coast of the American state of Alaska, situated in the north Pacific.

Kuril Islands - A group of 300 volcanic islands which are a region of and situated off the coast of northern Russia, which cover an area of 6,821 sq km, located in the north of the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii - An island chain of 137 islands which stretch for 2,400 kilometers, located in the eastern Pacific. ISLAND NATIONS OF THE PACIFIC SMALL ISLAND NATIONS Cook Islands - Constitutional monarchy - 15 islands covering 240 sq km - Capital, Avarua. East Timor - Sovereign state covering 14,874 sq km of the island of Timor - Capital, Dili. Federal States of Micronesia - Independent republic - 607 islands covering 701 sq km - Capital, Palikir. Fiji - Independent republic - 332 islands covering 18,330 sq km - Capital, Suva. Kiribati - Independent republic - 32 atolls covering 811 sq kms - Capital, South Tarawa.

Marshall Islands - Independent republic -1,156 islands and coral atolls covering 181 sq km - Capital, Majuro. Mariana Islands - 15 islands covering 463 sq km which are an incorporated territory of the USA. Nauru - Independent republic - 21 sq km - Capital, Yaren Palau - Independent republic - 497 sq km - Capital, Koror. Samoa - Independent republic - 2,831 sq km - Capital, Apia. Solomon Islands - Commonwealth realm - 1,000 islands covering 28,400 sq km - Capital, Honiara. Tonga - Constitutional monarchy - 748 sq km - Capital, Nuku'alofa. Tuvalu - Constitutional monarchy - 25 sq km - Capital, Fongafale Vanuatu - Independent republic - 82 islands covering 12,190 sq km - Capital, Port Vila. West Timor - Province of Indonesia covering an area of 15,850 sq km on the island of Timor. - Capital Kupang.

Australia - Commonwealth realm - 7,682,300 sq km - Capital, Canberra. Indonesia - Independent republic - 1,919,440 sq km - Capital, Jakarta. Japan - Constitutional Monarchy - 377,727 sq km - Capital, Tokyo. New Zealand - Commonwealth realm - 268,021 sq km - Capital, Wellington. New Guinea - 785,753 sq km - Contains the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, capital city Jayapura and the constitutional monarchy of Papua New Guinea, capital Port Moresby. The Philippines - Independent republic - 299,764 sq km - Capital, Manila.

PACIFIC ISLAND MAPS Shown below are twenty eight maps featuring the various Pacific Island groups of - Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor, the Philippines, Polynesia, Hawaii, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, French Polynesia, the Society Islands, the Austral Islands, the Marquesa Islands, the Toamutu Archipelago, the Gambier Islands, Micronesia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Melanesia, New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Gilbert Islands, the Galapagos Islands and the United States Minor Outlying Islands. VISIT OUR SISTER SITE - South Pacific Island Travel . INDONESIA The Republic of Indonesia consists of 17,508 islands which cover an area of 1,919,440 sq km, making it the world's largest archipelago. The island group's largest island is Sumatra at 443,044 sq km. The island group's capital city is Jakarta, situated on the island of Java, the world's most populated island with a population of 138 million people.

Pacific Islands | region, Pacific Ocean | Britannica.com Pacific Islands Polynesian culture Pacific Islands, island geographic region of the Pacific Ocean . It comprises three ethnogeographic groupings— Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia —but conventionally excludes the neighbouring island continent of Australia , the Asia-related Indonesian , Philippine , and Japanese archipelagoes, and the Ryukyu , Bonin , Volcano , and Kuril island arcs that project seaward from Japan . Neither does the term include the Aleutian chain or such isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean as the Juan Fernández group off the coast of South America. The more inclusive term Oceania , in its broadest definition, encompasses all the foregoing; however, the term is used less strictly in this article to refer to the Pacific Islands as defined above. The Pacific Island region covers more than 300,000 square miles (800,000 square km) of land—of which New Zealand and the island of New Guinea make up approximately nine-tenths—and millions of square miles of ocean. It is a mixture of independent states, associated states, integral parts of non-Pacific Island countries, and dependent states. Map of the Pacific Islands.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Houses on stilts, Port Moresby, P.N.G. Geogphotos/Alamy The great arc of islands located north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is called Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, “black,” and nēsos, “island”) for the predominantly dark-skinned peoples of New Guinea island, the Bismarck Archipelago , Solomon Islands , Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), New Caledonia , and Fiji . Culture areas of the Pacific Islands. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. North of the Equator and east of the Philippines are the islands of Micronesia, which form an arc that ranges from Palau , Guam , and the Northern Mariana Islands in the west eastward through the Federated States of Micronesia (the Caroline Islands), Nauru , and the Marshall Islands to Kiribati . In the eastern Pacific, largely enclosed within a huge triangle formed by the Hawaiian Islands to the north, New Zealand to the southwest, and Easter Island (Rapa Nui) far to the east, are the many (“poly”) islands of Polynesia.

Other components of this widely scattered collection, again generally from west to east, are Tuvalu , Wallis and Futuna , Tokelau , Samoa (the former Western Samoa), American Samoa , Tonga , Niue , the Cook Islands , and French Polynesia (including the Society , Tuamotu , and Marquesas islands). Similar Topics Galapagos Islands The main Pacific Islands span the Equator obliquely from northwest to southeast and can be divided into two major physiographic regions by island type: continental and oceanic. Deep ocean trenches form the Andesite Line along the eastern borders of Japan, the Marianas , New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and New Zealand. The line separates the basaltic volcanic islands of the central and eastern Pacific from the islands of the broad western Pacific margin, which are formed mainly of metamorphosed rocks, sediment, and andesitic volcanic material. The continental islands , lying southwestward of the Andesite Line, are faulted and folded in mountainous arcs, tend to be higher and larger than those farther east, and have rich soils that support almost every kind of vegetation.

Continental islands are generally larger (most notably, the Marianas, New Guinea, the Bismarcks, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, and the North and South islands of New Zealand) and have richer mineral-bearing soils than their oceanic counterparts. The parent lava material of the oceanic type of island is basalt. Oceanic islands are differentiated as high volcanic-based islands, such as Hawaii, or low coral islands and atolls , such as the Marshalls. Most Pacific islands are coral formations, although all of these rest on volcanic or other cores. In the shallow waters of the tropics, both continental and oceanic islands attract coral growth in the form of fringing reefs, partially submerged platforms of consolidated limestone , with coral organisms at the ocean edge feeding on materials carried in by waves and currents. Many islands have been gradually submerged through a combination of sinking, caused by geologic action, and flooding, caused by the melting of ice caps. As islands were flooded, coral growth continued outward, producing barrier reefs farther from the shorelines and separated from them by lagoons.

Volcanic peaks of Bora-Bora, a high volcanic island surrounded by a lagoon, Society Islands, French … © Nicholas DeVore III/Bruce Coleman Inc. A computer visualization of the process by which volcanic island chains are formed. Great plumes of … Displayed by permission of The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. (A Britannica Publishing Partner) Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales A coral atoll results when still further flooding reduces an island to a submarine condition. The usually irregular reef continues to build up in the warm shallows. It encircles a clear-surfaced lagoon of moderate depth and in time supports a number of islets built up from reef debris to 20–30 feet (6–9 metres ) above sea level . Rain catchments are usually the only source of fresh water on atolls . Islet of Bairiki, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati. Richard Vogel/AP History Randomizer The successive geologic lifting of some islands above sea level has created a variety of “raised” coral formations.

The northern half of Guam, for example, is a coralline limestone plateau with a general elevation of about 500 feet (150 metres), while the mountains in the southern half of the island, formed by volcanic activity, reach a maximum elevation of over 1,300 feet (400 metres). Nauru and Banaba (in Kiribati) are raised coral islands that stand at elevations of about 210 and 285 feet (65 and 90 metres), respectively. They have deeper soil and a more adequate water supply than atoll islets, as well as surface deposits of phosphate rock (derived from guano ) that have been mined commercially. The climate of the Pacific Islands is generally tropical (except in New Zealand, which has a temperate climate), with temperatures , humidity , and rainfall relatively uniform throughout the year. Temperature varies from averages in the low 80s F (about 28 °C) on both Nauru and Kiribati to an average in the low 60s F (about 15 °C) on Norfolk Island, one of the southernmost Pacific Islands.

Most vegetation is derived from Indonesia and New Guinea, and its generic variety declines eastward across the Pacific. Local environmental differences and relative isolation have resulted in the evolution of numerous new endemic species. The introduction of new species from throughout the world has also markedly altered island flora. Only a small proportion of the total land area is arable and, outside New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, is devoted mostly to the cultivation of coconut and cassava. Most of the larger islands also support some livestock. As much as two-thirds of the Pacific Islands’ total land area is forested. Most of the islands are poor in mineral resources. Connect with Britannica The population is concentrated in Papua New Guinea, New Zealand (which has a majority of people of European descent), Hawaii, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. Most Pacific Islands are densely populated, and habitation tends to be concentrated along the coasts. Traditionally dressed dancers in Honiara, Sol.Is. Tim Page/Corbis Melanesians make up more than three-fourths of the total indigenous population of the Pacific Islands. Polynesians account for more than one-sixth of the total, and Micronesians constitute about one-twentieth.

People of European origin account for as much as one-third of the Pacific Islands’ population if New Zealand is included in the total and less than one-tenth if it is not; outside New Zealand the largest concentration of people of European origin is in Hawaii. Several hundred distinct languages are spoken in the Pacific Islands; these are mostly Austronesian in origin. Most islanders have some familiarity with English or French; one or the other of these is the official language of virtually all Pacific Islands. Christianity has largely supplanted traditional beliefs and practices, although in some areas, such as Papua New Guinea, Christian faith is often combined with traditional practices. In general the Pacific Islands have developing economies in which both public and private sectors participate. The gross national product (GNP) per capita varies widely. Agriculture , fishing, and services are generally the largest economic sectors, and mining is important on a few of the islands. Subsistence farming predominates on the smaller islands. Almost all the islands grow coconuts, which, with copra, are a major export. Pasture is available only on the larger islands; pigs, cattle , and chickens are raised commercially there, and sufficient milk and meat are produced to satisfy domestic needs.

Villagers on some smaller islands and New Guinea rear pigs and goats for local use. Subsistence fishing is important everywhere except Hawaii and New Zealand and provides a major source of protein in local diets. There is also commercial fishing , notably in Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Fiji, which account for much of the regional catch. Islanders fishing in shallow waters off Ifalik Island, Yap state, Micron. Wolfgang Kaehler/Corbis Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Commercially exploitable forests in Fiji, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Vanuatu produce timber, sawn wood, and wood products for domestic consumption and export. The other islands generally must import quality lumber. Mineral production is limited to a few of the continental islands, such as New Caledonia, New Guinea, and New Zealand. The manufacturing sector, except in Hawaii and New Zealand, is mostly undeveloped and limited to processing fish and agricultural products and producing handicrafts.

Other islands with significant manufacturing besides Hawaii and New Zealand include Guam, Fiji, the Northern Marianas, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomons. Regional electricity is generated largely from imported fuels. Most Pacific Islands’ annual imports (excluding those of New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Hawaii) far exceed exports. Tourism and remittances from expatriates only partially offset the trade deficits. Frozen or canned fish, minerals , copra , cocoa , coffee , tea , and spices are among the leading exports, mainly to Japan, France , the United States, and Australia. Machinery and transport equipment, mineral fuels, food, and manufactured goods are among the chief imports and come mainly from Australia, France, Japan, and the United States . Only a small proportion of the Pacific Islands’ external trade is intraregional. Tourism is very important to the Pacific Ocean islands. Attractions include fine beaches, good fishing and boating, and local customs and crafts. French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, Fiji, and New Zealand have the most developed tourist sectors, but many of the other islands place a priority on developing facilities.

Most Pacific Islands that are overseas territories of other countries receive budgetary and development aid, mainly from the continental governing countries, while the smaller independent island states receive aid particularly from Australia and New Zealand, as well as from Japan, the United Kingdom , and the United States. Air transport and interisland shipping are the principal means of transport. Many of the island groups have international airports. Extensive road networks are limited to the larger islands. Offshore hut, Bora-Bora, French Polynesia. © Digital Vision/Getty Images The remainder of this article covers the history of the region. For more detailed discussion of the land and people of individual island groups and states, see the articles American Samoa , Caroline Islands , Cook Islands , Fiji , French Polynesia , Guam , Kiribati , Line Islands , Mariana Islands , Marshall Islands , Federated States of Micronesia , Midway Islands , Nauru , New Caledonia , Niue , Northern Mariana Islands , Palau , Papua New Guinea , Pitcairn Island , Samoa , Solomon Islands , Tokelau , Tonga , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , Wake Island , and Wallis and Futuna .

For discussion of the arts and cultures of the region, see the articles Oceanic art and architecture , Oceanic music and dance , Oceanic literature , Melanesian culture , Micronesian culture , and Polynesian culture . Area (excluding Indonesian New Guinea and the Hawaiian Islands but including Papua New Guinea) 317,739 square miles (833,926 square km). Pop. (2007 est.; excluding Indonesian New Guinea and the Hawaiian Islands but including Papua New Guinea) 13,518,070. Early period The prehistory of the Pacific Islands, the period before written records begin, extends back at least 33,000 years, according to archaeological remains in the Bismarck Archipelago , and migration to the region may have begun more than 40,000 years ago. Settlers had reached every habitable island by the 2nd millennium ce.

Since the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th century, the cultures , populations, and economies of the Pacific Islands have been transformed to varying extents, at first by contact with passing explorers and then, from the late 18th century, by the influence of more permanent visitors such as castaways, beachcombers, missionaries, and traders. During the 19th and 20th centuries, settlers flowed in, labourers immigrated or were brought in from other countries (predominantly India and China), and European administrators arrived. Missionaries and immigrants still make up significant segments of the population on the islands today, although European governments, with the exception of that of France, have entirely withdrawn from the region. Historical documents for the region are chiefly of European origin and are therefore the products of people who may not accurately have depicted cultures different from their own—cultures they perceived and understood only imperfectly. This distortion can be corrected to some extent by using the findings of social anthropology and the oral traditions of the Pacific Island people, but these sources may describe the past inaccurately because they serve contemporary purposes; they do not record the past for its own sake. But the main historiographic challenge provided by the region is its diversity .

Some 10,000 islands scattered across a wide expanse of ocean, a variety of cultures, hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages, and diverse historical experiences make generalizations difficult. (The arts of the region are treated in separate articles; see Oceanic art and architecture ; Oceanic music and dance ; and Oceanic literature .) The influence of physical geography Because of the distances involved, contact between islands has never been easy. In addition, the islands’ physical environments are isolated and varied. The large continental islands of Melanesia have widely varied landscapes, climates, and soil types; moreover, their rugged terrain has facilitated social isolation. The smaller volcanic high islands have greater homogeneity and easily support life well above the subsistence level. The physical environment did not determine the kinds of society that developed, but it did limit them. The large islands of Melanesia set the stage for profound cultural differences between people of the coast and those of the interior, particularly those in the more isolated valleys. Thus, Melanesia became characterized by many small groups of people, divided from each other by language and custom. There was little political and social organization, because most families and communities expended their energies on gathering food and other basic necessities.

The high volcanic islands of Polynesia offered no such barriers to social and political unity. Their fertility allowed elaborate social, religious, and political rituals to develop. These geographic and cultural contrasts between the Pacific Islands, which were obvious to early European visitors, concealed a similarity: the societies all rested on the principle of reciprocity . Whether the society was small, with leadership a matter of acquiring influence rather than hereditary position, or larger, with chiefs who were looked on with awe and treated with reverence, every gift or service had to be reciprocated . Origins of Oceanian peoples Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville , an early 19th-century French navigator and explorer, classified the islanders as Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian. The apparent differences between the islanders were regarded as evidence of separate waves of ethnically different people out of Southeast Asia . (A discredited variant theory traced the Polynesians to South America).

More recent research suggests that the differences arose within the islands themselves, through the intermixture of an original settlement of non-Austronesian-language speakers (see Papuan languages ) from Southeast Asia with a later wave of Austronesian speakers (see Austronesian languages ). The earlier wave of settlement occurred in Melanesia at least 33,000 years ago and probably, since New Guinea and Australia were then linked by land, at dates contemporaneous with Australian dates of settlement, extending back some 40,000 years or more. Secure dates in the interior of New Guinea approach 30,000 years ago. However, more sites must be uncovered to increase the level of certainty. Linguists have used a chronology of sound changes to trace the time and place of dispersion of language groups, but a considerable number of the languages of Oceania are as yet unstudied and unclassified. Geneticists have conducted studies in order to establish connections between contemporary human groups, thereby revealing past migrations, but systematic sampling has not yet been carried out.

The later Austronesian speakers, members of the prehistoric Lapita culture , which produced the well-known pottery known as Lapita ware, established themselves in the Bismarck Archipelago about 4,000 years ago. They then spread to Fiji , Tonga , and Samoa, which have been regarded as the Polynesian homeland. Newer evidence, however, has led to disagreement among prehistorians about the Lapita cultural complex: it may have arrived in Fiji with a later wave of seafaring immigrants. There is also disagreement about the speed with which the Lapita culture , distinctively linked with the Polynesians, moved from Southeast Asia through Melanesia into Fiji and thence to eastern Polynesia. The Marianas were probably settled about 1500 bce. It is possible that the Marquesas were settled as early as the 2nd century bce, rather than 300 ce, a date at which settlements may have occurred in Hawaii. The Society Islands were occupied by at least the 9th century ce. Lapita pottery, reconstructed two-dimensional anthropomorphic design, c. 1000 bc. Courtesy of R.C.

Green At the time of European contact, Oceanian societies had developed a technology based on stone, bone, and shell objects, and they cultivated tubers and tree fruits, most of which were of Southeast Asian origin. Genetic research has shown that some of the cultigens were native to wider areas, including New Guinea . The most notable exception was the sweet potato , which had spread from South America through most of Polynesia in pre-European times but only marginally into Melanesia. There were three main groups of domesticated animals: pigs, dogs , and chickens. The coastal people had developed fishing techniques and considerable skills as sailors. Navigation between the closer islands was well developed, and regular trade may have occurred between several islands. Some skills were lost; pottery , for example, disappeared in Samoa and the Marquesas shortly after initial settlement. European exploration The 16th and 17th centuries The world of the Pacific Islands was not a static one, but changes were slow compared with those that attended European contact.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific, in 1513; seven years later Ferdinand Magellan rounded South America and sailed across the ocean, missing the main island groups but probably encountering Pukapuka Atoll , in the Tuamotu Archipelago , and Guam . After his death in the Philippines, his expedition encountered some of the Carolines . These northern islands were further explored by the Spaniards as they established a galley trade between Manila , in the Philippines , and Acapulco , in western Mexico . The next major Spanish explorations were made by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira and Pedro Fernández de Quirós . In 1567 the former set out from Peru to discover the great southern continent that was believed to exist in the South Pacific. He reached the Solomons but failed to find them again on his second journey, during which he died. In 1606 his chief pilot, Quirós, after finding part of the Tuamotu Archipelago, reached the northern Cook Islands , Tikopia (a small Solomon Islands atoll), and the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu ).

One of his companions, Luis Váez de Torres , charted southeastern New Guinea and then the strait (later named for him) between that island and Australia, although the discovery was unknown to later sailors. These Spanish expeditions were motivated by the search for riches, by zeal to extend Christianity , and, in the case of Quirós, by an interest in exploration for its own sake. But with the voyage of Torres, the Spanish effort was ended. Thereafter, the Dutch , who were already established in Indonesia , entered the Pacific. They too looked for a southern continent. In 1615–16 the Dutch navigator Jakob Le Maire traveled from the east through the Tuamotus to Tonga and New Ireland and New Hanover in the Bismarck Archipelago. In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman , sailing from Batavia (now Jakarta ), the Dutch headquarters in the East Indies , saw New Zealand , Tasmania , Tonga, some of the Fiji Islands, and New Britain . The Dutch were primarily interested in commerce; they found none. Tasman thought that New Zealand was part of the great southern continent. The effect of these visitors on Oceania was transitory.

The Europeans stayed for periods of at most a few months. Their contacts with the islanders were based on simple barter, but the demands they made on food supplies often caused hostilities in which some European and many islanders’ lives were lost, as on Guadalcanal , in Solomon Islands, and in the Marquesas during Mendaña’s visits. The 18th century During the early 18th century, the extent of Oceania was further revealed. The English buccaneer William Dampier visited New Hanover, New Britain, and New Ireland in command of a Royal Navy ship. Dampier’s journey was a forerunner of the voyages of scientific exploration that followed, and he proved that those islands were separated from each other and from Australia. In 1722 the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen crossed the Pacific from east to west on a voyage of exploration that also had commercial objectives. He reached Easter Island , more of the Tuamotu Archipelago, the northern islands of the Society group, and some of the Samoan islands. William Dampier.

Courtesy of the American Geographical Society These voyages were not essentially different from earlier ones, but they too foreshadowed the scientific interest of the later 18th century. Further study was delayed by European wars. But in 1765 the English admiral John Byron (grandfather of poet Lord George Gordon Byron ), who was sent by the British Admiralty in search of the supposed southern continent, visited more of the Tuamotus and the southern Gilberts . In 1767 Samuel Wallis and Philip Carteret followed, but their ships were separated as they entered the Pacific. Wallis reached Tahiti, more of the Tuamotus, and the Society Islands, while Carteret found Pitcairn Island and revisited the Solomons that Mendaña had visited, although he did not so identify them. This was left to the French following Louis-Antoine de Bougainville ’s visit in 1768, during which he also charted some of the New Hebrides and Rossel Island , in the Louisiade Archipelago .

Dampier’s A New Voyage Round the World and Bougainville’s description of the “noble savage” in Tahiti were particularly influential in Europe. The interest their journeys created was in part responsible for the instructions given to the greatest of all 18th-century explorers of Oceania, James Cook . After three voyages he left others little to do but fill in occasional details of Oceania. Cook was sent (1768–71) to observe the transit of the planet Venus at Tahiti in 1769 and then to search for the great southern continent. He reached some of the Society Islands, but he also circumnavigated New Zealand, and he defined the limits of eastern Australia. During his second voyage (1772–75), he proved that there was no southern continent, but he also charted further lands in Oceania: in the Tuamotus, the Cooks, the Marquesas, Fiji, Niue , Tonga, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Norfolk Island .

During his third voyage (1776–79), which was mainly concerned with the North Pacific, he located some of the Tongan group, Christmas Island ( Kiritimati Atoll ), and the Sandwich Islands ( Hawaii ), where he was killed in 1779. He had completed the main work of exploration with an exactitude previously unknown. Although his contacts with islanders were not essentially different from those of his predecessors, his relations with them were nevertheless more prolonged and more humane. His exploration of eastern Australia, through the account of his naturalist, Joseph Banks , was of great importance in Oceania because it led to the founding of towns on the Australian coast, relatively close to the islands. Early European settlement Itinerants Oceania became a supply source in 1788 for the settlement of Australia. Pigs from Tahiti were landed at Sydney in 1793, and until 1826 the trade remained important, although it was subject to price fluctuations. The competition among Europeans for sandalwood, pearl shell, and bêche-de-mer (sea cucumber)—valuable cargoes that attracted ships from the Australian colony—further involved Oceania with the European world.

Sandalwood was found in Fiji in 1804, and for the next decade it attracted European traders. The sealing industry drew seal hunters to New Zealand, and in the 1790s fur traders wintered in Hawaii. All of these sustained and prolonged contacts began to affect the island societies. In addition, there were increasing numbers of European castaways and beachcombers, who had begun to live in the islands from the days of first European contact, because of the expansion of commercial shipping in the region. Castaways, such as HMS Bounty mutineers who went to Tahiti in 1789, began to alter the political climate by using their muskets to support the chiefs who befriended them. Missionary activity Christian missionaries traveled to Oceania with the deliberate intention of changing its societies. In 1797 the London Missionary Society (LMS) sent a party to Tahiti. After some vicissitudes the missionaries converted a prominent chief, Pomare II , who controlled the area of Matavai Bay, where European ships had called since Wallis’s landing.

The LMS failed in its first attempts in Tonga and the Marquesas, although it was more successful in Huahine (in the Society Islands), the Tuamotus, the Cook Islands, and, later, Samoa. English and American missionaries then tried to win over additional Polynesian chiefs so that the masses would follow. Indigenous converts were sent to other islands to spread the word. In 1823 John Williams of the LMS took Polynesian missionaries to Rarotonga and other islands, and he took Christianity to Samoa in 1830. The Methodists began arriving in Tonga in 1822 and Fiji in 1835. Roman Catholic missionaries began working in New Caledonia in the 1840s, and, at about the same time, the Church of England began to penetrate into Oceania from New Zealand. Meanwhile, Polynesian societies were facing varying degrees of lawlessness and disorder at the hands of European beachcombers and traders. British missionaries responded to the situation by creating missionary kingdoms, whereas the French established direct political control.

In Tahiti, Hawaii, and Tonga, native chiefs became powerful kings by gaining access to European arms and support, consolidating power, and accepting missionary advisers and missionary-designed codes of law. In 1819 Pomare II of Tahiti promulgated such a code. In Tonga, Taufaʿahau took the name George in 1833, and in 1845, when he took the Tongan title Tuʿi Kanokupolu, he became king of Tonga; during his reign Tonga became unified and adopted a constitution (1875). The missionary kingdoms addressed problems of European lawlessness in the islands by attempting to enforce a scriptural code of law. Although missionaries could not prevent the sale of arms, they could at least ensure that these passed into the hands of friendly chiefs. However, the authority of the “kings” was challenged from two sides. Many opposed them because they believed that, by becoming Christian, they had cut themselves off from the mana (a Polynesian and Melanesian religious concept sometimes described as an all-pervasive energy) that came from the old gods.

In Tahiti in 1830 there was a revolt against the new Christian order by supporters of the old ways; in 1831 there was a similar reaction in Tonga. In Samoa, where the holder of the chiefly title Malietoa had embraced Christianity from Tahitian missionaries, heretical movements arose. Traditional beliefs thus resisted the chiefs and their missionary supporters. At the same time, European traders also resisted the political authority of the kings. Dissidents and heretics looked to these Europeans for leadership, and they turned to their own national governments for protection. The French took control of the Society Islands and nearby archipelagoes beginning in 1842. They also established missionary control of Wallis and Futuna. In Melanesia events transpired differently. In Fiji the missionaries who landed in 1835, accompanied by an envoy from George of Tonga, made no headway with the rising chief Cakobau , who was not converted until 1854, when his fortunes were at a low ebb and he needed Tongan support. Elsewhere in Melanesia, the absence of chiefs meant that missionary work had to be conducted with small groups of people and repeated every few miles.

There was no wholesale conversion of the kind that had happened in Polynesia. The LMS failed to win over the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) in the 1840s, and the Anglican Melanesian mission in the Solomons made slow progress in the 1850s. Mission work in New Guinea was divided into four spheres of influence in Papua but did not begin systematically until the 1870s. Micronesia was considered a backwater. The Spaniards had established missionaries in the Marianas in 1668, but the missionaries in the Carolines were killed in 1733. The main effort came from the Hawaiian Evangelical Mission in the 1850s, which dissolved the old ties of society by attacking the supernatural sanctions that supported leadership and social mores. Missionaries thus altered political structures, introduced both European goods and the desire for them, and acted as intermediaries between Pacific Island societies and other Europeans—as political advisers, as agents, and as interpreters. Growth of trading communities Beachcombers and castaways preceded missionaries in many of the islands, but trading communities grew partly because of the missionaries’ work in restraining native violence.

Those individuals were initially pork traders in Tahiti, but European captains followed valuable cargoes from island to island. When the supply of sandalwood was depleted in Fiji by 1813, the traders then found it in Hawaii in the 1820s, in the New Hebrides in 1825, and in New Caledonia in 1840. Pearl shell attracted traders to the Tuamotus in 1807, and the sandalwood trade declined as supplies were exhausted. However, Europeans in both trades were harsh and sometimes committed atrocities, and pearling declined as islanders began to take reprisals. The needs of the Oceanians also changed the character of trade. Once native polities had been established, the demand for muskets fell off; under missionary influence the demand for alcohol was limited. Islanders increasingly desired clothing and hardware. Exchange trading encouraged the establishment of resident agents in the islands, who met the needs of the whalers who went ashore to refit their vessels. After 1840, exchange trading also met the needs of the staple trade of the islands—coconut oil, derived from copra and used for soap and candles.

Copra trading became the mainstay of European trade because even islands that had no other resources had coconut palms. Such commerce promoted the growth of the port towns and of resident trading communities. Papeete in Tahiti, Apia in Samoa, and Levuka in Fiji became centres for Europeans, including respectable traders as well as lawless people who might be escaped convicts from New South Wales (Australia) or others seeking to free themselves from the rules of European societies. Native kings and visiting European captains had difficulty establishing order in these types of frontier towns. Plantation societies Problems became more serious after permanent European settlers arrived. In Fiji, for example, following Cakobau’s first offer to cede the islands to Great Britain in 1858, Europeans began to establish plantations of coconuts and then, during the American Civil War , of cotton and afterward of sugarcane. Developments in Samoa were similar. But planters needed land on a much larger scale than did traders, and they needed labour in much greater quantities to work the plantations. Land sales caused friction because “ownership” was not an Oceanian concept, and land titles were thus disputed or resented.

Labour recruiting often caused the breakup of traditional societies if too many males left their communities and the creation of immigrant labour communities if they did not. By 1870 there were 2,000 such permanent European residents in Fiji. The settlers desired political and economic stability, including secure land titles and a large labour supply, but the missionary kingdoms and independent native governments failed to satisfy their requirements. In Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji no native authority was able to keep order in the novel circumstances created by European enterprise; in any case, the native kings were themselves open to challenge within their own societies. Pomare II encountered revolt in Tahiti; Samoan politics were always a matter of rivalry between chiefs; and Cakobau’s government was threatened by the Tongan chief Maʿafu, who had established his own confederacy in the Lau Group in Fiji. Page 1 of 2 How to choose a South Pacific island - Lonely Planet How to choose a South Pacific island Tips & articles Lonely Planet Writer The South Pacific confounds even the savviest map buffs with its splatter of dots spread across the world's biggest ocean.

What you can't tell from a map, or even most tourist brochures is that these palm-laden pinpricks are as diverse as the region is vast. While the postcards might look similar, Fiji and Tahiti are not interchangeable or even much alike when it comes to landscapes and culture. As you move east across the Pacific from the Solomon Islands to Easter Island , the flora and fauna becomes less diverse. Islands to the east like New Caledonia and Fiji have land snakes and fruit bats, French Polynesia and Easter Island don't. Underwater you'll find more soft corals in the plankton-rich waters to the west but better visibility in the greater reaches of open water to the east. South Pacific islands are culturally and geographically divided into Polynesia (from the Greek meaning 'many islands') and Melanesia (meaning 'black islands'). Polynesian islands include Samoa , Tonga , Cook Islands , French Polynesia and Easter Island while Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands are Melanesian. The colonial history of the islands has resulted in a modern-day patchwork of English- and French-speaking island groups (plus Spanish in the far eastern Easter Island). Still confused?

Here's the low-down on the main regions and their highlights: Best for: resorts, diving, culture, surfing, hiking Language: French With over 115 islands spanning five archipelagos, French Polynesia has it all from the legendary, luxe Bora Bora and its over-the-water-bungalows to uncountable forgotten islands perfect for Crusoe wannabes looking for a basic beach bungalow. Wherever you go, you'll be kissed with a touch of French style. Dive with plentiful reef sharks and manta rays in the Tuamotu Atolls ; ogle the world's fastest hip shaking at a Tahitian dance performance during the July Heiva Festival; hike to waterfalls and mountain ridges on Tahiti , Moorea , the Marquesas Islands and more; or watch professional surfers brave cavernous tubes at Teahupoo , Tahiti. Best for: beaches, resorts, families, food, diving Language: English The Cook Islands mix Polynesian blue water and hospitality with New Zealand (who administer the islands) savoir faire.

On the lush, main isle of Raratonga beach bum all day then experience an 'Island Night' Polynesian feast (pork cooked in an earthen oven, taro root and more) and a local dance performance. Hop a plane to Aitutuaki atoll, with its low-lying coral islets curling around one of the world's most fantastic lagoons. When not diving, snorkelling or swimming in blue water, check out the atoll's ancient stone temples called marae. Best for: culture, volcanoes, backpackers, resorts, diving Language: English & French If you want rumbling volcanoes, kava bars, shipwrecks to dive on and wild jungles to trek but still want your roads paved and your cheese French, Vanuatu is the place for you. The main Island of Efate is home to the endearingly dusty capitol of Port Vila but the real action lies on the outer islands. Tanna is dominated by fiery and climbable Mt Yasur. Espiritu Santo has upscale resorts and a tough trek to the massive Millennium Cave filled with waterfalls and bats. Dive and snorkel WWII wrecks to coral gardens.

White sand beach at Hideaway Island near Port Vila, Island of Efate, Vanuatu. Michael Runkel / Getty Images. Best for: beaches, culture, surfing, peace & quiet, hiking Language: English The Samoan Islands are divided into two countries - Samoa, which is independent, and American Samoa , which - you guessed it - is an American territory. Both however remain very traditionally Polynesian. Although 'Upolu in Samoa has a few relatively upscale resorts, all the islands feel untouristy and much other accommodation is in the form of basic open beach huts called fale. You'll find some of the South Pacific's best and most pristine beaches, lots of smiles, flower-filled villages and a pace of life that stands out as slow even in this region. There are few organized excursions but for independent types the opportunity for hiking, cultural connections, surfing and snorkelling are endless. Best for: beaches, culture, diving, food, wind sports Language: French New Caledonia 's massive Grande Terre is the third largest island in the Pacific (after Papua New Guinea and New Zealand) and is home to the second largest double barrier coral reef in the world (after Australia's Great Barrier Reef).

Beyond the diving, wind sports and sailing in the lagoon, the land supports a mix of Melanesian and French cultures that bring an elegant balance to hospitality, cuisine and accommodation ranging from beach bungalows to very posh resorts. Outlying islands such as Île des Pins and Ouvéa offer more remote escapes with some of the Pacific's best beaches and heaps of delicious seafood. Best for: culture, beaches, kayaking, whale watching, surfing Language: English The Kingdom of Tonga is a country of traditional values and strong Christianity backed by endless blue bays, sparkling beaches and ancient stone temples. The main island of Tongatapu is the seat of the monarchy but most visitors head quickly to the Vava'u Group . Here you'll find one of the best places on Earth to swim with or watch humpback whales. Sailboats flock around the Vava'u's many sheltered blue bays while plenty of scarcely discovered surfing waves are tucked along the coasts. Best for: archaeology, culture, eco-tourism, hiking, horseback riding Language: Spanish Few places on the planet are as intriguing Easter Island 164 square kilometer island so far east, it's technically a part of Chile.

Giant, sober-faced stone statues called moai dominate the landscape here whether they are full-standing or still only partially carved from rock; their mystery is an even larger presence. Tour the island on foot, bike or horseback, find small white beaches and enjoy the lively Polynesian culture mixed with South American spice. Tourism is on the rise but the island remains personable and dedicated to eco-travel. Sunrise on Easter Island with the moai of Ahu Tongariki. Marko Stavric Photography / Getty Images. Best for: culture, diving, hiking, surfing, eco-tourism Language: English Arguably one of the wildest destinations in the South Pacific, the Solomon Islands host a traditional Melanesian culture and an ever-lingering WWII history. Guadalcanal , the capital island, is home to numerous historical war sites. For relaxation head to the New Georgia Islands , particularly Marovo Lagoon for its fish-filled lagoon dotted with small islands. Beaches are few but the kayaking, diving and traditional culture make it a true adventure. Other Islands Where to begin?

Some places like Niue , Tuvalu and Wallis & Futuna have flight connections while others like Tokelau and Pitcairn Island can still only be reached by sea (here's the author's tale of reaching Pitcairn Island ). We could go on, but if you're just getting started, you should have more than enough above to make you a busy (and happy) island-hopper for quite some time. Solomon Islands | history - geography - islands and nation, Pacific Ocean | Britannica.com islands and nation, Pacific Ocean Written By: Alternative Title: Islas de Solomón Solomon Islands constitutional monarchy with one legislative house (National Parliament [50]) Head of state British Monarch: Queen Elizabeth II , represented by Governor-General: Sir Frank Kabui Head of government Literacy: percentage of population age 15 and over literate Male: (2009) 88.9% Country Data Overview (PDF) Solomon Islands, country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean . It consists of a double chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in Melanesia.

The country comprises most of the Solomons chain, with the exception of Buka and Bougainville , two islands at the northwestern end that form an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea . Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Reef island off Malaita, Solomon Islands. Jim Lounsbury Once a British protectorate , Solomon Islands achieved independence as a republic in 1978. Honiara , on the north coast of Guadalcanal Island, is Solomon Islands’ capital and largest city. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Land The main islands of the group are large and rugged, rising to 7,644 feet (2,330 metres) at Mount Popomanaseu on Guadalcanal . They lie in two parallel chains running northwest-southeast: the southern chain includes Vella Lavella, the New Georgia Islands , Savo, and Guadalcanal; the northern, Choiseul , Santa Isabel , and Malaita . The chains converge on San Cristobal (Makira Island).

The Santa Cruz Islands are a group of small islands located some 345 miles (555 km) east of Guadalcanal; the largest island in the group is Nendö (also called Ndeni Island or Santa Cruz Island). Geologically, the Solomon Islands are part of the volcanic arc extending from New Ireland in Papua New Guinea to Vanuatu . Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Islands with fringing coral reefs, New Georgia Islands, Sol.Is. Michael Pitts/Nature Picture Library The climate is tropical oceanic—that is, hot and humid but relieved by cool winds and abundant, year-round rainfall. Temperatures seldom exceed 90 °F (32 °C), and rainfall generally averages 120–140 inches (3,000–3,500 mm) a year. Heavily wooded, mountainous terrain is characteristic, and, although there are extensive plains, only those on the northern side of Guadalcanal have been developed for large-scale agriculture. As in most island groups, animal life is limited.

Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest There are hot springs on Savo , where a volcano last erupted in the 1840s. Solomon Islands has a number of other volcanoes. For example, Tinakula in the Santa Cruz group and Kavachi, a submarine volcano near New Georgia, have erupted regularly every few years, and Simbo Island has a solfatara (a volcanic area or vent that yields only hot vapours and sulfurous gases). Earthquakes and destructive cyclones also occur regularly. Earthquakes and a subsequent tsunami in April 2007 killed several dozen people and displaced thousands; in January 2010 a less-severe series of earthquakes and the tsunami that followed left more than 1,000 people homeless. People Most of the people live in small rural villages. They engage mainly in subsistence gardening, pig raising, and fishing but are also involved in the cash economy. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. The vast majority of the population is ethnically Melanesian .

Polynesians , who form a small minority, live mainly on outlying atolls, principally Ontong Java Atoll , Bellona, Rennell Island , the Reef Islands, the Stewart Islands (Sikaiana), Tikopia, and Anuta. There are also small numbers of Chinese and Europeans and of Gilbertese from Micronesia who were resettled on Ghizo and Vaghena islands between 1955 and 1971 by British administrators seeking to alleviate overpopulation in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati ). Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Oceania: Fact or Fiction? Almost all Solomon Islanders are Christian; most are Protestant (mainly Church of Melanesia [Anglican]), with smaller numbers of Roman Catholics and members of other denominations. A small minority practices traditional beliefs. More than 60 languages and dialects are spoken. English is the official language , but Pijin, an English-based Melanesian pidgin , is the language that is most widely used and understood. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Economy Civil unrest in the late 1990s and early 21st century, including a coup in 2000, led to the near collapse of the country’s economy. Damage to infrastructure on Guadalcanal resulted, disrupting transportation, commerce, and agriculture, and many enterprises were forced out of business. The 2007 earthquakes and tsunami caused further economic setbacks. Related Topics Commonwealth In the early 21st century the service sector employed the majority of the active workforce and contributed almost half of the country’s gross domestic product . Tourism has been developed but is not a major source of income. Solomon Islands’ main resources, fish and timber, have been exploited excessively, which has resulted in their depletion. Its other export products are derived from plantation crops: palm oil, copra , and cacao (the source of cocoa). China and Australia are the major recipients. The chief imports are machinery, fuels, manufactured goods, and food, and Australia, Singapore , and China are the main suppliers. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The islands have significant reserves of bauxite (on Rennell Island ) and phosphates (on Bellona), and some gold has been extracted on Guadalcanal. Manufacturing primarily involves the processing of coconut and other vegetable oils and of cocoa . Traditional handicrafts, including woodwork, shell inlay, mats, baskets, and shell jewelry , are made both for the tourist market and for export. The Solomon Islands dollar is the official currency ; indigenous currencies such as shell money (from Malaita) and red-feather money (from Santa Cruz) are also made for use in customary transactions. The principal airport is Honiara International Airport, although there are several airfields throughout the islands that may also serve as international points of entry. The government -owned Solomon Airlines provides domestic and regional air service. Ports handling overseas cargoes include Honiara , Tulagi (the former capital), and Gizo Harbour. Aola Bay, Viru Harbour, and Graciosa Bay are used mainly for log exports. Interisland shipping is operated both privately and by the government. Government and society Solomon Islands is a constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch, represented by a governor-general, serving as the formal head of state.

Still, the country, a member of the Commonwealth , is independent, and the governor-general is appointed on the advice of the unicameral National Parliament. The governor-general, who serves a term of up to five years, must be a citizen of Solomon Islands. Members of the Parliament are elected by universal adult suffrage and serve for four years (unless Parliament is dissolved sooner). Executive power is exercised by a prime minister (elected by and from Parliament) and a cabinet appointed by the governor-general from among the members of Parliament on the recommendation of the prime minister. Although political parties exist in name, their organization and discipline tend to be loose. The prime minister rarely commands a clear majority in Parliament, and so governments are usually formed of a coalition of parties or factions. Local government councils control matters regarding transportation , economic development, health, and education. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Education is not compulsory. Schools are run both by the national and provincial governments and by various churches. Many secondary schools provide practical training in fields such as agriculture and development studies. There are several teacher-training schools and a technical institute, as well as a campus of the University of the South Pacific in Honiara.

Some students attend universities overseas, especially in Fiji and Papua New Guinea . There is a hospital at Honiara. Cultural life Much of traditional culture endures. Crafts are promoted by the Solomon Islands National Museum, established in 1969 in Honiara, and dances and music are regularly performed. Panpipes and percussive “bamboo bands” (assemblages of drums made of bamboo) are popular. An indigenous literary movement developed in the late 20th century; the writing is in English and mostly published in Solomon Islands. For a more detailed discussion of the culture of Solomon Islands, see Melanesian culture . Traditionally dressed dancers in Honiara, Sol.Is. Tim Page/Corbis History This section focuses specifically on the history and development of the area and country now known as Solomon Islands. For a discussion of the history of Solomon Islands in its broader, regional context, see Pacific Islands . U.S. Marines landing on Guadalcanal, August 1942. UPI/Bettmann Archive The Solomon Islands were initially settled by at least 2000 bce—well before the archaeological record begins—probably by people of the Austronesian language group .

Pottery of the Lapita culture was in use in Santa Cruz and the Reef Islands about 1500 bce. Material dating to about 1000 bce has also been excavated at Vatuluma Cave (Guadalcanal), on Santa Ana Island, and on the outlying islands of Anuta and Tikopia. The first European to reach the islands was the Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira in 1568. Subsequently, unjustified rumours led to the belief that he had not only found gold there but had also discovered where the biblical king Solomon obtained the gold for his temple in Jerusalem. The islands thus acquired the name Islas de Solomón. Later Spanish expeditions to the southwest Pacific in 1595 and 1606 were unable to confirm the discoveries reported by Mendaña. Geographers came to doubt the existence of the group, and it was not until the late 18th century, after further sightings by French and English navigators, that the Solomons were accurately charted.

After the settlement of Sydney by the English in 1788, naval and commercial shipping began increasingly to pass through the Solomons’ waters. Roman Catholic missionaries failed to establish a settlement in the 1840s but did so in 1898. Anglican missionaries, who had been taking islanders to New Zealand for training since the 1850s, began to settle in the Solomons in the 1870s. Other missions arrived later. By the late 19th century the islands were being exploited for labour to work the plantations of Fiji and other islands and of Queensland , Austl. About 30,000 labourers were recruited between 1870 and 1910. To protect their own interests, Germany and Britain divided the Solomons between them in 1886; but in 1899 Germany transferred the northern islands, except for Buka and Bougainville , to Britain (which had already claimed the southern islands) in return for recognition of German claims in Western Samoa (now Samoa ) and parts of Africa.

The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was declared in 1893, partly in response to abuses associated with labour recruitment and partly to regulate contacts between islanders and European settlers, but mainly to forestall a threat of annexation by France . Colonial rule began in 1896. Although generally humane, administrators were more concerned with promoting the interests of European traders and planters than those of the islanders, and islanders were punished harshly for offenses against colonial law and order. The murder of government tax collectors by members of the Kwaio ethnic group on Malaita in 1927 was answered with a savage punitive expedition, backed by an Australian warship, that burned and looted villages and killed many of the Kwaio. Together with some of his associates, Basiana, the leader of the tax collectors’ killers, was hanged, and his young sons were forced to witness the execution. With the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific, the Japanese began occupying the protectorate early in 1942, but their advance farther southward was stopped by U.S. forces, which invaded on August 7.

Fighting in the Solomons over the next 15 months was some of the most bitter in the Pacific; the long Battle of Guadalcanal was one of the crucial conflicts of the Pacific war. Throughout the campaign the U.S. forces and their allies were strongly supported by the islanders. After the war, because of the proximity of an airfield and the availability of flat land and of the military’s buildings, Honiara on Guadalcanal became the new capital, replacing Tulagi. Another result of the war was to stimulate political consciousness among the islanders and so inspire a nationalist movement known as Maasina Rule, which lasted from 1944 to 1952. Subsequently, in response to the worldwide movement for decolonization , the Solomons set out on the path of constitutional development. The country was formally renamed Solomon Islands in 1975, and independence was attained on July 7, 1978. Peter Kenilorea, who had helped lead Solomon Islands to independence, became its first prime minister (1978–81) and served a second term from 1984 to 1986.

Solomon Mamaloni, another pre-independence leader, served as prime minister several times in the 1980s and ’90s; resigning from his final term in August 1997 amid allegations of corruption, he was replaced by Bartholomew Ulufa’alu. In 1999 Solomon Islands became embroiled in ethnic violence, with rebels on Guadalcanal fighting to overthrow the island’s dominant Malaitan minority. Ulufa’alu, an ethnic Malaitan, was deposed in a June 2000 coup, and civil disorder reigned. Later that year New Zealand and Australian forces arrived, and a peace accord was signed. Although sporadic violence continued, efforts began to rebuild the heavily damaged country. The conflict had led to the near-collapse of the country’s government, which was unable to provide services or ensure public safety. Foreign aid was secured to repair the extensive property and infrastructure damage.

Damaged buildings in the Chinatown neighbourhood of Honiara, Sol.Is., after postelection rioting, … AP Solomon Islands - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) Consisting of eight large islands and island groups, the Solomon Islands are situated about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) northeast of Australia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The islands are arranged in two parallel chains located between Papua New Guinea on the northwest and Vanuatu on the southeast. The islands are volcanic and mountainous and nearly 90 percent of the land is forested. The hot and humid climate has a mean annual temperature of 80F (27C). Average annual rainfall ranges from 120 to 140 inches (300 to 350 centimeters). Area 10,954 square miles (28,370 square kilometers). Population (2016 est.) 658,000. Article Contributors

Question: What is the largest island in the Pacific Ocean?
Answer: New Guinea