The Pacific Islands

Introduction

Australia shares marine territorial boundaries with neighbouring countries not just in the South East Asian and Asia-Pacific regions but in the broader Pacific region which is made up of approximately 25 000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. This region is often broadly referred to as Oceania. It contains islands that mostly span the south and west of the Pacific Ocean and are surrounded by a series of volcanoes, the 'Pacific rim of fire', which is an unstable oceanic perimeter that comprises the Pacific coastal margins of South America, North America, and Asia, and forms a distinct part of the Melanesian area. High volcanic islands such as the Hawaiian Islands and low coral islands throughout Oceania continue to rise from the ocean floor of the Pacific. Australia is sometimes, but not always, included in this region as it is a continent.

Pacific Regions and Included Island Groups

The Pacific or Oceanic region can be divided into three island groups that reflect the geography, culture and ethnic backgrounds of the indigenous inhabitants of the islands. These groups include Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Australia's near neighbours to the northeast are part of Melanesia. The larger islands of Melanesia and Polynesia are referred to as continental islands, as distinguished from the much smaller islands of Micronesia and Polynesia. The islands can be further divided into two main groups which include the low islands and the high islands. The low islands consist mainly of coral reefs and atolls scattered through the Pacific. Most of these rise little more than one metre above sea level, including islands in the Gilbert, Marshall, Phoenix, Tuamotu and Tuvalu groups as well as other single islands. The high islands consist mostly of hills, rugged mountains and some active volcanoes, where earthquakes and other tectonic activity are frequent and often severe. They include New Britain, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, the Marianas, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Melanesia

The Melanesian islands (Melanesia meaning 'black islands') are located in the south-western part of the Pacific basin, generally north and north-east of Australia. They include Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Fiji is also generally considered to be part of the Melanesian island group despite its Polynesian cultural background. Melanesia is dominated by relatively large, high islands, containing more than 98% of the total land area of all Pacific islands and about 82% of all Pacific island population.

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is one of Australia's most populous Asia-Pacific neighbours. The country shares a border with Indonesia and is located to Australia's immediate north. It consists of the eastern half of the large island of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago (whose largest islands are New Britain, New Ireland, and Manus), the northernmost Solomon Islands of Bougainville and Buka, and several smaller island groups east of New Guinea. Its capital is Port Moresby which is the largest urban metropolis south of Honolulu, north of Australia, and east of Indonesia. It was granted independence in 1975 from its former status as a colony of Australia. The country remains fragmented by historic cultural schisms, regional and political rivalries and linguistic barriers.

The Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands include ten high islands and numerous small ones that extend in a double chain for roughly 1600 kilometres southeast of Bougainville. The islands are physically similar to those of the Bismarck Archipelago and are similar to Papua New Guinea in their village-oriented subsistence agriculture and settlement. The inhabitants consist of roughly 300 000 and are of 95% Melanesian ethnicity. Its capital, Honiara, hosts a population of about 25 000 and is located on the largest and dominant island of Guadalcanal.

Vanuatu

Vanuatu consists of an incomplete double chain of roughly 80 islands that extends across 720 kilometres of ocean in a northwest-southeast direction. Most of these are high islands with several containing active volcanoes. About 140 000 Melanesians occupy the islands, no more than 20,000 of which on each island but more than 5000 on half a dozen. They are on scattered village settlements throughout the archipelago, mostly along the coasts. In addition to the indigenous inhabitants there are a few hundred Europeans, Vietnamese, and Chinese. Its dominant island is Efate, which contains the capital, Port-Vila, as well as Vanuatu's two major ports.

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is both physically and culturally unique from other Melanesian islands and is the Pacific Basin's third largest island, roughly 400 kilometres in length. Its resource-rich deposits have attracted numerous French settlers that have displaced the indigenous Melanesians. Other occupants include Polynesians, Indonesians, and Vietnamese. The country's capital, Noumea, has a large urban population of 85 000.

Fiji

Fiji is located on the outer boundaries of the Melanesian region in its culture, but is generally considered to be a Melanesian island group. Its indigenous population is Melanesian whereas culturally it is more aligned with neighbouring Polynesian countries. The group consists of about 800 islands with 82% of the land and 92% of the inhabitants included in the two major islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Urban settlement has recently grown with roughly 40% of the population now being urban. The capital and chief port, Suva, has a population that exceeds 175 000. Other major urban corridors have emerged such as Suva-Nausori in eastern Viti Levu and Nadi-Lautoka in western Viti Levu.

Micronesia

Micronesia (meaning 'tiny islands') consists of 2,500 islands scattered over 7,700,000 square kilometres of ocean, located north of the Melanesian islands and north of the Equator. With the exception of some high islands the region mostly includes low-lying coral islands such as Guam, the Caroline Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati (previously known as the Gilbert Islands) and Nauru. These encompass only about 0.3% of the total land area of the Pacific islands and only about 5% of the Pacific island population. They are largely unsettled but some are densely crowded. The island occupants are physically and culturally diverse, with nine regional languages containing a variety of dialects.

Guam

Guam is the largest of the Mariana Islands and contains about half of Micronesia's total population. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, south of Japan and east of the Philippines. It has been a United States territory since it was lost to the US from Spain in 1898. The US military has since put nearly a third of the island's area to use with Americans, particularly military personnel, comprising a third of Guam's population of 100 000. Its other occupants include significant numbers from the Philippines, with less than half of the population being of indigenous Micronesian origin.

The Republic of Nauru

Nauru is the smallest and one of the least populous countries in the world. It is also the only country in the Pacific Ocean which is just one island. Its size is 24 square kilometres and its narrow band of habitable coastline has a population of 9000. It is located in the central Pacific, south of the equator and west of the Gilbert Islands which are in Kiribati. In 1968 Nauru became independent from Australia which had control of Nauru and its rich phosphate mines from 1947. Nauru has built up other industries like shipping to replace mining of phosphates which have since been used up.

Polynesia

Polynesia (meaning 'many islands') is one of the most far-flung Pacific culture groups. It is the largest area in the South Pacific, stretching across 8000 kilometres from Midway Island and Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south and Easter Island in the east. It contains more than a dozen of the central and south-eastern Pacific's main island groups. Polynesia consists of only 1% of the total Pacific land area, but has more than 13% of the total population with the exception of Hawaii. Polynesians share a largely homogenous culture with similar languages and dialects throughout the included countries, Tonga, Western Samoa, American Samoa, French Polynesia, and The Cook Islands as well as smaller, less populous island groups, Wallis and Futuna, Tuvalu, Niue, Tokelau, Easter Island and Pitcairn Islands.

Western Samoa

Western Samoa occupies the western islands of the Samoan group (the smaller eastern islands being American Samoa). It is 2831 square kilometres in size and its habitable areas include the smaller islands of Savai'i and Upolu. Its population is 157 000 with most living on Upolu.