180-574: FIBA Oceania Championship was the Oceania basketball championships that took place every two years between national teams of the continent. Through the 2015 edition, the Oceania Championship was also a qualifying tournament for the Basketball World Cups and Olympic Games . The first edition of the tournament was held in 1971. When only Australia and New Zealand competed, the tournament
360-780: A Spanish language segment of Oceania, and included the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, Guadalupe Island, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands and Salas y Gómez. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island were not explicitly referenced in the book, despite being areas which would fall within this range. All other islands associated with Latin American countries were excluded, as they are continental in nature, unlike Guadalupe Island and
540-689: A U.S. state in 1947, and as such was part of the original UN definition of Oceania. The island states of Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan, all located within the bounds of the Pacific or associated marginal seas, are excluded from the UN definition. The states of Hong Kong and Malaysia , located in both mainland Asia and marginal seas of the Pacific, are also excluded, as are Brunei , East Timor and Indonesian New Guinea/Western New Guinea . The CIA World Factbook also categorizes Oceania as one of
720-418: A chief Hotu Matuꞌa discovered the island in one or two large canoes with his wife and extended family. They are believed to have been Polynesian . Around 1200, Tahitian explorers discovered and began settling the area. This date range is based on glottochronological calculations and on three radiocarbon dates from charcoal that appears to have been produced during forest clearance activities. Moreover,
900-591: A continent in the book, but did note that it was one of the six major divisions of the world. The Oxford Handbook of World History (2011) describes the areas encompassed in Oceania as being "afterthoughts in world history texts, lumped together and included at the end of global surveys as areas largely marginal to the main events of world history". The new terms Near Oceania and Remote Oceania were proposed in 1973 by anthropologists Roger Green and Andrew Pawley . By their definition, Near Oceania consists of New Guinea,
1080-721: A fifth grand division of the world." He also viewed Oceania as covering Australia, New Zealand, the Malay Archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. In 1887, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland referred to Australia as the area's westernmost land, while in 1870, British Reverend Alexander Mackay identified the Bonin Islands as its northernmost point, and Macquarie Island as its southernmost point. The Bonin Islands at that time were
1260-558: A fight, and the western section was not of any strategic value to either side, so they did not battle there. The Japanese invaded the north shore of the Australia territories and were aiming to move south and take the southern shore too. The highlands, northern and eastern parts of the island became key battlefields in the South West Pacific Theatre of World War II . Notable battles were for Port Moresby (the naval battle
1440-757: A floristic region that extends from the Malay Peninsula across Indonesia to New Guinea and the East Melanesian Islands . The flora of New Guinea is a mixture of many tropical rainforest species with origins in Asia, together with typically Australasian flora. Typical Southern Hemisphere flora include the conifers Podocarpus and the rainforest emergents Araucaria and Agathis , as well as tree ferns and several species of Eucalyptus . New Guinea has 284 species and six orders of mammals: monotremes , three orders of marsupials , rodents and bats ; 195 of
1620-578: A large source of income for the Pacific island nations . Definitions of Oceania vary. The broadest definition encompasses the many islands between mainland Asia and the Americas . The island nation of Australia is the only piece of land in the area which is large enough to typically be considered a continent. The culture of the people who lived on these islands was often distinct from that of Asia and pre-Columbian America. Before Europeans arrived in
1800-583: A metaphor for a land that is entering a new era. In Serui Iri-an ( lit. "land-nation") means "pillar of nation", while in Merauke Iri-an ( lit. "placed higher-nation") means "rising spirit" or "to rise". The name was promoted in 1945 by Marcus Kaisiepo, brother of Frans Kaisiepo . The name was politicized later by Corinus Krey, Marthen Indey , Silas Papare , and others with the Indonesian backronym Ikut Republik Indonesia Anti Nederland ("Join
1980-531: A near-equivalent number of separate languages, which makes New Guinea the most linguistically diverse area in the world. Ethnologue 's 14th edition lists 826 languages of Papua New Guinea and 257 languages of Western New Guinea , total 1073 languages, with 12 languages overlapping. They can be divided into two groups, the Austronesian languages , and all the others placed in the catch-all category of Papuan languages , most of which are unrelated. The separation
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#17328559055372160-499: A population of 70,000,000, and commented that, "brown and yellow races constitute the vast majority" and that the minority of whites were mainly "owners and rulers". Hutton Webster's 1919 book Medieval and Modern History also considered Oceania to encompass all islands in the Pacific, stating that, "the term Oceania, or Oceanica, in its widest sense applies to all the Pacific Islands." Webster broke Oceania up into two subdivisions;
2340-416: A population of around 44.4 million as of 2022. Oceania is the smallest continent in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica . Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia , French Polynesia , Hawaii , New Caledonia , and New Zealand , which rank high in quality of life and Human Development Index , to
2520-637: A possession of Britain; Macquarie Island, to the south of Tasmania , is a subantarctic island in the Pacific. It was politically associated with Australia and Tasmania by 1870. Alfred Russel Wallace believed in 1879 that Oceania extended to the Aleutian Islands , which are among the northernmost islands of the Pacific. The islands, now politically associated with Alaska , have historically had inhabitants that were related to Indigenous Americans , in addition to having non-tropical biogeography similar to that of Alaska and Siberia . Wallace insisted while
2700-565: A province of New Guinea) in the west to Galápagos Islands (Equador) and Easter Island (Chile) in the east." In a 1980 report on venereal diseases in the South Pacific, the British Journal of Venereal Diseases categorized the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being in an eastern region of the South Pacific, along with areas such as Pitcairn Islands and French Polynesia, but noted that
2880-535: A recent study which included radiocarbon dates from what is thought to be very early material suggests that the island was discovered and settled as recently as 1200. Oceania was first explored by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Portuguese navigators, between 1512 and 1526, reached the Maluku Islands (by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão in 1512), Timor , the Aru Islands (Martim A. Melo Coutinho),
3060-568: A result, much evidence is based on linguistic analysis. The earliest archaeological traces of civilization have been found on the island of Saipan , dated to 1500 BCE or slightly before. The ancestors of the Micronesians settled there over 4,000 years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centred on Yap and Pohnpei . The prehistories of many Micronesian islands such as Yap are not known very well. The first people of
3240-547: A significant non-indigenous European population, numbering around 71,000. Conversely, New Caledonia has still had a similar history to the rest of Melanesia, and their French -speaking Europeans make up only 27% of the total population. As such, it is not also culturally considered a part of the predominantly English-speaking Australasia. Some cultural and political definitions of Australasia include most or all of Melanesia, due to its geographical proximity to Australia and New Zealand, but these are rare. Australia, New Zealand and
3420-518: A tribal committee meeting in Tobati, Jayapura, formed by Soegoro Atmoprasodjo under governor JP van Eechoed, to decide on a new name because of the negative association of Papua . Frans Kaisiepo , the committee leader, suggested the name from Mansren Koreri myths, Iri-an from the Biak language of Biak Island , meaning "hot land" (referring to the climate), but also from Iryan which means heated process as
3600-429: Is divided politically into roughly equal halves across a north–south line: The current population of the island of New Guinea is about fifteen million. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans may have inhabited the island continuously since 50,000 BCE, and first settlement possibly dating back to 60,000 years ago has been proposed. The island is presently populated by almost a thousand different tribal groups and
3780-567: Is a geographical region including Australasia , Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia . Outside of the English-speaking world , Oceania is generally considered a continent , while Mainland Australia is regarded as its continental landmass . Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere , Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and
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#17328559055373960-437: Is around 4,000 m (13,100 ft) elevation, and the tallest peaks contain 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. Another major habitat feature
4140-512: Is certainly not necessary to consider the Hawaiian Islands and Australia as being in the same part of the world, it is however permissible to unite in one group all the islands which are scattered over the great ocean. It should be remarked that if we take the Malay Archipelago away from Oceania, as do generally the German geographers, the insular world contained in the great ocean is cut in two, and
4320-656: Is estimated that 4% to 6% of the genome in Melanesians (e.g. Papua New Guinean and Bougainville Islander) derives from the Denisova hominin , an ancient human species discovered in 2010, while no Eurasians or Africans displayed contributions of the Denisovan genes. The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan -speaking people. Migrating from Southeast Asia, they appear to have occupied these islands as far east as
4500-491: Is evidence of genetic and linguistic interchange between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian peoples of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but this may be the result of recent trade and intermarriage . They reached Tasmania c. 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age . It is believed that the first early human migration to Australia
4680-802: Is geologically a partially submerged volcanic extension of the Aleutian Range on the Alaskan mainland. He did not include the volcanic Kuril Islands and Ryukyu Islands, which similarly border both the Eurasian Plate and the Pacific Plate, nor did he include the neighbouring Kodiak archipelago in the North Pacific Ocean, which is firmly situated on the North American Plate. The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies stated in 1996 that Oceania
4860-561: Is geologically part of the Japanese Archipelago , but that has been administered by Russia since World War II . Hong Kong, partly located in another marginal sea of the Pacific (the South China Sea ) was also included in his definition. Australia and New Zealand were grouped together by Flick as Australasia, and categorized as being in the same area of the world as the islands of Oceania. Flick estimated this definition of Oceania had
5040-763: Is home to an estimated 44 uncontacted tribal groups . With some 786,000 km of tropical land—less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the Earth's surface—New Guinea has an immense biodiversity , containing between 5 and 10 percent of the total species on the planet. This percentage is about the same amount as that found in the United States or Australia. A high percentage of New Guinea's species are endemic , and thousands are still unknown to science: probably well over 200,000 species of insect, between 11,000 and 20,000 plant species, and over 650 resident bird species. Most of these species are shared, at least in their origin, with
5220-614: Is in spite of the geographical distance separating these areas from Hawaiʻi, which technically lies in the North Pacific. The 1985 edition of the South Pacific Handbook also groups the Galápagos Islands as being in Polynesia, while noting that they are not culturally a part of the subregion. The islands are typically grouped with others in the southeastern Pacific that were never inhabited by Polynesians. The Bonin Islands are in
5400-831: 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 six provinces of Indonesia : Papua , Central Papua , Highland Papua , South Papua , West Papua and Southwest Papua . The eastern half forms
5580-677: Is known as the Battle of the Coral Sea ), Milne Bay and for the Kokoda track . Papuans often gave vital assistance to the Allies , fighting alongside Australian troops, and carrying equipment and injured men across New Guinea. Approximately 216,000 Japanese, Australian and U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen died during the New Guinea Campaign. Following the return to civil administration after World War II,
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5760-561: Is largely continental in character, New Zealand's are clearly insular; and neither Commonwealth realm has close ties with Asia." In his 2002 book Oceania: An Introduction to the Cultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders , Andrew Strathern excluded Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu Islands from his definition of Oceania, but noted that the islands and their indigenous inhabitants "show many parallels with Pacific island societies." In
5940-517: Is most often used for a wider region that includes lands, such as New Zealand , which are not on the same continental shelf. In the early 1970s, they introduced the term Greater Australia for the Pleistocene continent. Then, at a 1975 conference and consequent publication, they extended the name Sahul from its previous use for just the Sahul Shelf to cover the continent. The island of New Guinea
6120-451: Is not merely linguistic; warfare among societies was a factor in the evolution of the men's house : separate housing for groups of adult men, away from the single-family houses of women and children. Pig-based trade between groups and pig-based feasts form a common tradition with the other peoples of southeast Asia and Oceania. Most Papuan societies practice agriculture, supplemented by hunting and gathering. Current evidence indicates that
6300-471: 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 , a UNESCO World Heritage Site . The northern lowlands are drained principally by the Mamberamo River and its tributaries on
6480-527: The Bonin Islands , a politically integral part of Japan; Hawaii , a state of the United States ; Clipperton Island, a possession of France ; the Juan Fernández Islands , belonging to Chile; and Macquarie Island , belonging to Australia. The United Nations (UN) has used its own geopolitical definition of Oceania since its foundation in 1947, which utilizes four of the five subregions from
6660-691: The Farallones off California, and the Chinchas off Peru are—to all intents and purposes, only detached bits of the adjoining shores. But in the case of the Galápagos, at least, this is different." The Juan Fernández Islands and the neighbouring Desventuradas Islands are today seen as the easternmost extension of the Indo-West Pacific biogeographic region. The islands lie on the Nazca Plate with Easter Island and
6840-543: The French expression Terres océaniques (Oceanic lands) c. 1804. In 1814 another French cartographer, Adrien-Hubert Brué, coined from this expression the shorter "Océanie", which derives from the Latin word oceanus , and this from the Greek word ὠκεανός ( ōkeanós ), "ocean". The term Oceania is used because, unlike the other continental groupings, it is the ocean that links
7020-564: The Grand Valley of the Baliem River, which had 50,000 yet-undiscovered Stone Age farmers living in orderly villages. The people, known as the Dani , were the last society of its size to make first contact with the rest of the world. A 1930 expedition led by the prospector Michael Lehay also encountered an indigenous group in the highlands. The inhabitants, believing themselves to be the only people in
7200-535: The Gulf of Papua form a single delta complex. The rivers of the island are extremely rich in water due to the annual rainfall of 2,000–10,000 mm. According to a modest calculation, the New Guinea River carries about 1,500 km /a (48,000 m /s) of water into the sea. Fly alone carries more water 238 km /a (7,500 m /s) than all the rivers in Australia combined. The island of New Guinea lies to
7380-579: The Mamberamo River , near which he landed on 20 June, naming the island 'Nueva Guinea'. The first known map of the island was made by F. Hoeiu in 1600 and shows it as 'Nova Guinea'. In 1606, Luís Vaz de Torres explored the southern coast of New Guinea from Milne Bay to the Gulf of Papua including Orangerie Bay , which he named Bahía de San Lorenzo . His expedition also discovered Basilaki Island naming it Tierra de San Buenaventura , which he claimed for Spain in July 1606. On 18 October, his expedition reached
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7560-601: 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) across the island, with many mountains over 4,000 m (13,100 ft). The western half of the island contains the highest mountains in Oceania , with its highest point, Puncak Jaya , reaching an elevation of 4,884 m (16,023 ft). The tree line
7740-668: The Spice Islands , they also used the name Papua . However, Westerners, beginning with Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez in 1545, used the name New Guinea , due to the resemblance between the indigenous peoples of the island and Africans of the Guinea region . The name is one of several toponyms sharing similar etymologies , ultimately meaning "land of the blacks" or similar meanings. The Dutch, who arrived later under Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten , called it Schouten island . They later used this name only to refer to islands off
7920-621: The Tanimbar Islands , some of the Caroline Islands (by Gomes de Sequeira in 1525), and west Papua New Guinea (by Jorge de Menezes in 1526). In 1519, a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan sailed down the east coast of South America, found and sailed through the strait that bears his name and on 28 November 1520 entered the ocean which he named "Pacific". The three remaining ships, led by Magellan and his captains Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão , then sailed north and caught
8100-578: The Territory of New Guinea , to be administered by Australia under a League of Nations mandate . The territories under Australian administration became collectively known as The Territories of Papua and New Guinea (until February 1942). Before about 1930, European maps showed the highlands as uninhabited forests. When first flown over by aircraft, numerous settlements with agricultural terraces and stockades were observed. The most startling discovery took place on 4 August 1938, when Richard Archbold discovered
8280-478: The U.S. military ). This is due to their location in the centre of the Pacific, their biogeography and their oceanic geology. Less isolated oceanic islands that were once uninhabited, such as the Bonin Islands, the Galápagos Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands, have since been sparsely populated by citizens of their political administrators. Archaeological evidence suggests that Micronesians may have lived on
8460-526: The east coast of Australia for the first time. The arrival of European settlers in subsequent centuries resulted in a significant alteration in the social and political landscape of Oceania. The Pacific theatre saw major action during the First and Second World Wars . The rock art of Aboriginal Australians is the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. Most Oceanian countries are parliamentary democracies , with tourism serving as
8640-556: The equator , such as Chiloé Island, Macquarie Island, Tasmania, and the southern portions of mainland Australia and New Zealand, were not included in this category. According to the 1998 book Encyclopedia of Earth and Physical Sciences , Oceania refers to Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and more than 10,000 islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. It notes that, "the term [has] also come under scrutiny by many geographers. Some experts insist that Oceania encompasses even
8820-536: The trade winds which carried them across the Pacific to the Philippines where Magellan was killed. One surviving ship led by Juan Sebastián Elcano returned west across the Indian Ocean and the other went north in the hope of finding the westerlies and reaching Mexico. Unable to find the right winds, it was forced to return to the East Indies. The Magellan-Elcano expedition achieved the first circumnavigation of
9000-426: The 19th century: Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. This definition consists of discrete political entities, and so excludes the Bonin Islands, Hawaii, Clipperton Island and the Juan Fernández Islands, along with Easter Island — which was annexed by Chile in 1888. It is used in statistical reports, by the International Olympic Committee , and by many atlases. The UN categorizes Oceania, and by extension
9180-422: The 2006 book Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds , American paleontologist David Steadman wrote, "no place on earth is as perplexing as the 25,000 islands that make Oceania." Steadman viewed Oceania as encompassing Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia (including Easter Island and Hawaii). He excluded from his definition the larger islands of New Guinea and New Zealand, and argued that Cocos Island,
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#17328559055379360-529: The 2013 book The Environments of the Poor in Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific , Paul Bullen critiqued the definition of Oceania in Encyclopedia of Islands , and wrote that since Koppers included areas such as Vancouver Island, it is "not clear what the referents of 'Pacific Region', 'Oceania' or 'Pacific Islands' are." Bullen added that, "Asia, Europe and the Maritime Continent are not literal geographic continents. The ' Asia–Pacific region' would comprise two quasi-continents. 'The Pacific' would not refer to
9540-418: The Aleutian Islands, Japan's Izu Islands , the Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands and most of the Solomon Islands, were also excluded from his definition. Unlike the United Nations, the World Factbook defines the still-uninhabited Clipperton Island as being a discrete political entity, and they categorize it as part of North America, presumably due to its relative proximity (situated 1,200 kilometres off Mexico on
9720-501: The Aleutian Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, California 's Channel Islands and Farallon Islands , Canada 's Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Islands (now known as Haida Gwaii), Chile's Chiloé Island , Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, Mexico's Guadalupe Island , Revillagigedo Islands , San Benito Islands and Tres Marías Islands , and Peru's Chincha Islands . Islands in marginal seas of
9900-451: The Asian continent. They are now often referred to as Maritime Southeast Asia , with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore being founding members of the ASEAN regional organization for Southeast Asia in 1967 (Brunei and East Timor did not exist as independent nations at that point). Brown also categorized Japan and Taiwan as being in the same part of the world as the islands of Oceania, and excluded them from The Countries of
10080-401: The Asian mainland, as well as the Aleutians and the small island groups situated near the Americas. Thus, Oceania most commonly refers to the land areas of the South and Central Pacific. Kennedy defined Oceania as including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The U.S. Government Publishing Office 's Area Handbook for Oceania from 1971 states that Australia and New Zealand are
10260-405: The Australian Plate and have been geographically associated with Southeast Asia, due to their proximity to western Indonesia. Both were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans during the 17th century. Approximately half of the population on these islands are European Australian mainlanders (with smaller numbers being European New Zealanders ), while the other half are immigrants from China or
10440-425: The Australian section was known as the Territory of Papua-New Guinea from 1945 to 1949 and then as Territory of Papua and New Guinea . Although the rest of the Dutch East Indies achieved independence as Indonesia on 27 December 1949, the Netherlands regained control of western New Guinea. During the 1950s, the Dutch government began to prepare Netherlands New Guinea for full independence and allowed elections in 1959;
10620-447: The Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands, with the exception of the Santa Cruz Islands . They are designed to dispel the outdated categories of Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia ; many scholars now replace those categories with Green's terms since the early 1990s, but the old categories are still used in science, popular culture and general usage. Islands at the geographic extremes of Oceania are generally considered to be
10800-445: The Bonin Islands c. 2,000 years ago, but they were uninhabited at the time of European discovery in the 16th century. Depending on the definition, New Zealand could be part of Polynesia, or part of Australasia with Australia. New Zealand was originally settled by the Polynesian Māori , and has long maintained a political influence over the subregion. Through immigration and high Māori birth rates, New Zealand has attained
10980-422: The Desventuradas Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being part of a region titled Insular Chile . They further include in this region Salas y Gómez, a small uninhabited island to the east of Easter Island. PLOS One describe Insular Chile as having "cultural and ecological connections to the broader insular Pacific." In her 1997 book Australia and Oceania , Australian historian Kate Darian-Smith defined
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#173285590553711160-419: The Dutch promoted Tidore as suzerain of Papua. By 1849, Tidore's borders had been extended to the proximity of the current international border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea , as it formed extensive trade pact and custom of Uli-Siwa ( federation of nine ). In 1883, following a short-lived French annexation of New Ireland , the British colony of Queensland annexed south-eastern New Guinea. However,
11340-441: The Galápagos Islands were not a member of the South Pacific Commission , like other islands in the South Pacific. The South Pacific Commission is a developmental organization formed in 1947 and is currently known as the Pacific Community; its members include Australia and other Pacific Islands Forum members. In a 1947 article on the formation of the South Pacific Commission for the Pacific Affairs journal, author Roy E. James stated
11520-422: The Galápagos Islands, and have a significant south central Pacific component to their marine fauna. According to scientific journal PLOS One , the Humboldt Current helps create a biogeographic barrier between the marine fauna of these islands and South America. Chile's government have occasionally considered them to be within Oceania along with Easter Island. Chile's government also categorize Easter Island,
11700-415: The Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands, Costa Rica 's Cocos Island and Colombia 's Malpelo Island (all oceanic) as making up a Spanish language segment of Oceania. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island are the only landmasses located on the Cocos Plate , which is to the north of the Nazca Plate. The book observed that a native Polynesian language was still understood on Easter Island, unlike with
11880-446: The Galápagos Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands and other oceanic islands nearing the Americas were not part of Oceania, due to their biogeographical affinities with that area and lack of prehistoric indigenous populations. In his 2018 book Regionalism in South Pacific , Chinese author Yu Changsen wrote that some "stress a narrow vision of the Pacific as those Pacific Islands excluding Australia and even sometimes New Zealand", adding that
12060-522: The Hawaiian and Galápagos ." In 1876, French geographer Élisée Reclus labelled Australia's flora as "one of the most characteristic on the globe", adding that "the Hawaiian archipelago also constitutes a separate vegetation zone; of all tropical insular groups it possesses the relatively largest number of endemic plants. In the Galápagos group also more than half of the species are of local origin." Rand McNally & Company , an American publisher of maps and atlases, claimed in 1892 that, "Oceania comprises
12240-440: The Indonesian portion of New Guinea and the Maluku Islands is estimated to have 9,518 species of vascular plants, of which 4,380 are endemic. In 2020, an international study conducted by a team of 99 experts cataloged 13,634 species representing 1,742 genera and 264 families of vascular plants for New Guinea and its associated islands ( Aru Islands , Bismarck Archipelago , D'Entrecasteaux Islands , Louisiade Archipelago ), making it
12420-506: The Malay Archipelago, not the modern country of Malaysia ) and Polynesia (which included both the Polynesian and Micronesian islands in her definition). Aside from mainland Australia, areas that she identified as of high importance were Borneo, Hawaii, Indonesia's Java and Sumatra , New Guinea, New Zealand, the Philippines, French Polynesia's Society Islands , Tasmania, and Tonga. American geographer Jesse Olney 's 1845 book A Practical System of Modern Geography stated that it "comprises
12600-645: The Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC E, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts . The Polynesian people are considered to be by linguistic, archaeological and human genetic ancestry a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people and tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago , and ultimately, in Taiwan . Between c. 3000 and 1000 BCE, speakers of Austronesian languages began spreading from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia , as tribes whose natives were thought to have arrived through South China c. 8,000 years ago to
12780-420: The Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian subdivisions, but not with the Indonesian or non-tropical subdivisions. The Pacific Islands Handbook (1945), by Robert William Robson, stated that, "Pacific Islands generally are regarded as Pacific islands lying within the tropics. There are a considerable number of Pacific Islands outside the tropics. Most of them have little economic or political importance." He noted
12960-529: The Morning Star flag) and via the formation of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, or Free Papua Movement) in 1965. Amnesty International has estimated more than 100,000 Papuans, one-sixth of the population, have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans. Reports published by TRT World and De Gruyter Oldenbourg have put the number of killed Papuans since the start of
13140-607: The Northern Mariana Islands navigated to the islands and discovered it at some period between 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE from Southeast Asia . They became known as the Chamorros . Their language was named after them. The ancient Chamorro left a number of megalithic ruins, including Latte stone . The Refaluwasch or Carolinian people came to the Marianas in the 1800s from the Caroline Islands . Micronesian colonists gradually settled
13320-497: The Pacific , by Richard W. Casteel and Jean-Claude Passeron, states that, "for the purpose of anthropology , Oceania has long been a continent like Africa, Asia and America." Scottish geographer John Bartholomew wrote in 1873 that, "the New World consists of North America , and the peninsula of South America attached to it. These divisions [are] generally themselves spoken as continents, and to them has been added another, embracing
13500-618: The Pacific Ocean and everything in it e.g., the Philippines." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names (2017), by John Everett-Heath, states that Oceania is "a collective name for more than 10,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean" and that "it is generally accepted that Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the islands north of Japan (the Kurils and Aleutians) are excluded." In his 1993 book A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands , New Guinea-born Fijian scholar Epeli Hauʻofa wrote that, "Pacific Ocean islands from Japan, through
13680-552: The Pacific Plate). Clipperton is not politically associated with the Americas, as is the case with other oceanic islands nearing the Americas, having had almost no interaction with the continent throughout its history. From the early 20th century to 2007, the island was administratively part of French Polynesia, which itself was known as French Oceania up until 1957. In terms of marine fauna, Clipperton shares similarities with areas of
13860-645: The Pacific area, as one of the major continental divisions of the world, along with Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Their definition includes American Samoa , Australia and their external territories , the Cook Islands , Federated States of Micronesia , French Polynesia , Fiji, Guam , Kiribati , the Marshall Islands, Nauru , New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue , the Northern Mariana Islands , Palau , Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands , Samoa ,
14040-522: The Pacific such as those of Japan or the Channel Islands off the southern California coast are not typically considered Oceania as the indigenous populations of these places do not share a common ancestry with Oceanic groups, except for a time far before humans sailed Pacific waters." It has been theorized that the indigenous Jōmon people of the Japanese archipelago are related to Austronesians, along with
14220-679: The Pacific were also covered in the book, including Alaska's Pribilof Islands and China's Hainan . Tyler additionally profiled the Anson Archipelago , which during the 19th century was a designation for a widely scattered group of purported islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii. The Anson archipelago included phantom islands such as Ganges Island and Los Jardines which were proven to not exist, as well as real islands such as Marcus Island and Wake Island. Tyler described Australia as "the leviathan of
14400-498: The Pacific which are much farther removed from the Americas. Scottish author Robert Hope Moncrieff considered Clipperton to be the easternmost point of Oceania in 1907, while Ian Todd also included it in his definition of Oceania in Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama . Other uninhabited Pacific Ocean landmasses have been explicitly associated with Oceania, including the highly remote Baker Island and Wake Island (now administered by
14580-541: The Papuan Gurabesi , managed to conquer some areas in New Guinea, which was then reorganised to form Korano Ngaruha ("Four Kings") or Raja Ampat , Papoua Gam Sio ( lit. "The Papua Nine Negeri "), and Mafor Soa Raha ( lit. The Mafor "Four Soa "). The name comes from the words papo ("to unite") and ua (negation), which means "not united", i.e. an outlying possession of Tidore. Anton Ploeg reports that
14760-586: The Papuans (who constitute the majority of the island's peoples) are descended from the earliest human inhabitants of New Guinea. These original inhabitants first arrived in New Guinea at a time around the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 21,000 years ago) when the island was connected to the Australian continent via a land bridge , forming the landmass of Sahul . These peoples had made the (shortened) sea-crossing from
14940-506: The Philippines and Indonesia, which are adjacent to the Asian mainland, do not have oceanic cultures, and are therefore not part of Oceania." The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania (2018) defined Oceania as only covering Austronesian-speaking islands in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, with this definition including New Guinea and New Zealand. Other Austronesian areas such as Indonesia and
15120-501: The Philippines were not included, due to their closer cultural proximity to mainland Asia. Australia was also not included, as it was settled several thousands of years before the arrival of Austronesian-speaking peoples in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The book stated, "this definition of Oceania might seem too restrictive: Why not include Australia, for example, or even too broad, for what does Highland New Guinea have to do with Hawai'i?", further noting that, "a few other islands in
15300-509: The Queensland government's superiors in the United Kingdom revoked the claim, and (formally) assumed direct responsibility in 1884, when Germany claimed north-eastern New Guinea as the protectorate of German New Guinea (also called Kaiser-Wilhelmsland ). The first Dutch government posts were established in 1898 and in 1902: Manokwari on the north coast, Fak-Fak in the west and Merauke in
15480-561: The Republic of Indonesia Oppose the Netherlands"). Irian was used somewhat in 1972. The name was used until 2001, when Papua was again used for the island and the province. The name Irian , which was originally favored by natives, is now considered to be a name imposed by the authority of Jakarta . New Guinea is an island to the north of the Australian mainland , south of the equator. It
15660-602: The Revillagigedo Islands (both situated on the Pacific Plate) and the oceanic islands situated on the Cocos Plate and Nazca Plate. Todd defined the oceanic Bonin Islands as making up a Japanese language segment of Oceania, and excluded the main Japanese archipelago. Todd further included the Aleutian Islands in his definition of Oceania. The island chain borders both the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate , and
15840-602: The Ryukyu Islands. He added that, "besides the proceeding, the Pacific contains many other islands, of which the most important are Hainan and Formosa, on the coast of China, the Japan isles, the Kuriles, the Aleutian Islands (stretching from the New World to the Old), Vancouver Island, the Galápagos, Juan Fernández and Chiloé." Scottish academic John Merry Ross in 1879 considered Polynesia to cover
16020-560: The Solomon Islands, Tokelau , Tonga , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , Wallis and Futuna , and the United States Minor Outlying Islands ( Baker Island , Howland Island , Jarvis Island , Midway Atoll , Palmyra Atoll , and Wake Island ). The original UN definition of Oceania from 1947 included these same countries and semi-independent territories, which were mostly still colonies at that point. Hawaii had not yet become
16200-466: The Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, and New Zealand and the oceanic islands of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia." He went on to write that his preferred definition of Oceania emphasis islands with oceanic geology, stating that oceanic islands are, "islands with no past connections to a continental landmass" and that, "these boundaries encompass the Hawaiian and Bonin Islands in the north and Easter Island in
16380-497: The World: Volume 5 , which covered mainland Asia and Hong Kong. However, Brown did not explicitly associate Japan or Taiwan with the term Oceania. He divided Oceania into two subregions: Eastern Oceania, which included the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and Southwestern Oceania, which included Australia and New Zealand. The Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands and the Revillagigedo Islands were identified as
16560-527: The [Malay] archipelago." In a 1972 article for the Music Educators Journal titled Musics of Oceania , author Raymond F. Kennedy wrote: many meanings have been given to the word Oceania. The most inclusive–but not always the most useful–embraces about 25,000 land areas between Asia and the Americas. A more popular and practical definition excludes Indonesia, East Malaysia (Borneo), the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and other islands closely related to
16740-667: The area as covering Australia, New Zealand and the islands of the Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. She excluded Hawaii from her definition, but not Easter Island. The International Union for Conservation of Nature stated in a 1986 report that they include Easter Island in their definition of Oceania "on the basis of its Polynesian and biogeographic affinities even though it is politically apart", further noting that other oceanic islands administered by Latin American countries had been included in definitions of Oceania. In 1987, The Journal of Australasian Cave Research described Oceania as being "the region from Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea,
16920-499: The area now known as the Torres Strait flooded after the end of the last glacial period . Anthropologically, New Guinea is considered part of Melanesia . New Guinea is differentiated from its drier, flatter, and less fertile southern counterpart, Australia, by its much higher rainfall and its active volcanic geology. Yet the two land masses share a similar animal fauna, with marsupials , including wallabies and possums , and
17100-483: The area, the sea shielded Australia and south central Pacific islands from cultural influences that spread through large continental landmasses and adjacent islands. The islands of the Malay Archipelago , north of Australia, mainly lie on the continental shelf of Asia, and their inhabitants had more exposure to mainland Asian culture as a result of this closer proximity. The geographer Conrad Malte-Brun coined
17280-486: The book adds that Hawaii is still within Oceania, despite being politically integrated into the U.S., and that the Pacific Ocean "gives unity to the whole" since "all these varied lands emerge from or border upon the Pacific." The 1876 book The Countries of the World , by British scientist and explorer Robert Brown , labelled the Malay Archipelago as Northwestern Oceania, but Brown still noted that these islands belonged more to
17460-591: The book. Hainan, which neighbours Taiwan, also has Austronesian ethnolinguistic origins, although it was not included in the book. The book defined Oceania's major subregions as being Australia, Indonesia (which included all areas associated with the Malay Archipelago), Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. In 2010, Australian historian Bronwen Douglas claimed in The Journal of Pacific History that "a strong case could be made for extending Oceania to at least Taiwan,
17640-403: The coastal areas and islands of New Guinea. They also introduced pigs and dogs . These Austronesian migrants are considered the ancestors of most people in insular Southeast Asia, from Sumatra and Java to Borneo and Sulawesi , as well as coastal new Guinea. The western part of the island was in contact with kingdoms in other parts of modern-day Indonesia. The Negarakertagama mentioned
17820-500: The coastal fringes of the main island in places. Human habitation of New Guinea over tens of thousands of years has led to a great deal of diversity, which was further increased by the later arrival of the Austronesians and the more recent history of European and Asian settlement through events like transmigration . Large areas of New Guinea are yet to be explored by scientists and anthropologists. The Indonesian province of West Papua
18000-533: The cold Aleutian Islands and the islands of Japan. Disagreement also exists over whether or not Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan should be included in Oceania." The Japanese Archipelago, the Malay Archipelago and Taiwan and other islands near China are often deemed as a geological extension of Asia, since they do not have oceanic geology , instead being detached fragments of the Eurasian continent that were once physiologically connected. Certain Japanese islands off
18180-442: The conflict at roughly 500,000. From 1971, the name Papua New Guinea was used for the Australian territory. On 16 September 1975, Australia granted full independence to Papua New Guinea. In 2000, Irian Jaya was formally renamed "The Province of Papua" and a Law on Special Autonomy was passed in 2001. The Law established a Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) with representatives of the different indigenous cultures of Papua. The MRP
18360-571: The continent of Australia, which was until fairly recent geological times part of the same landmass (see Australia-New Guinea for an overview). The island is so large that it is considered 'nearly a continent' in terms of its biological distinctiveness. In the period from 1998 to 2008, conservationists identified 1,060 new species in New Guinea, including 218 plants, 43 reptiles, 12 mammals, 580 invertebrates, 134 amphibians, 2 birds and 71 fish. Between 2011 and 2017, researchers described 465 previously undocumented plant species in New Guinea. As of 2019,
18540-675: The continental championships would no longer be part of the qualifying process for either the World Cup or Olympics. The 2015 Oceanian Championships were the last to be held as from 2017, the tournament merged with the former FIBA Asia Championship to give way to a competition now known as the FIBA Asia Cup . Oceania Oceania ( UK : / ˌ oʊ s i ˈ ɑː n i ə , ˌ oʊ ʃ i -, - ˈ eɪ n -/ OH -s(h)ee- AH -nee-ə, - AY - , US : / ˌ oʊ ʃ i ˈ æ n i ə , - ˈ ɑː n -/ OH -shee- A(H)N -ee-ə )
18720-518: The continental group, which included Australia, the Japanese archipelago, the Malay Archipelago and Taiwan, and the oceanic group, which included New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Charles Marion Tyler's 1885 book The Island World of the Pacific Ocean considered Oceania to ethnographically encompass Australia, New Zealand, the Malay Archipelago, and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. However, Tyler included other Pacific islands in his book as well, such as
18900-457: The east of the Malay Archipelago , with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago. Geologically it is a part of the same tectonic plate as Australia. When world sea levels were low, the two shared shorelines (which now lie 100 to 140 metres below sea level), and combined with lands now inundated into the tectonic continent of Sahul , also known as Greater Australia. The two landmasses became separated when
19080-459: The easternmost areas of Oceania in the book. Brown wrote, "they lie nearest the American continent of all oceanic islands, and though rarely associated with Polynesia, and never appearing to have been inhabited by any aboriginal races, are, in many ways, remarkable and interesting." Brown went on to add, "the small islands lying off the continent, like the Queen Charlotte's in the North Pacific,
19260-407: The edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia. In the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with some certainty. It is thought that by roughly 1400 BCE, " Lapita Peoples", so-named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of north-west Melanesia. Easter Islanders claimed that
19440-468: The egg-laying monotreme , the echidna . Other than bats and some two dozen indigenous rodent genera, there are no pre-human indigenous placental mammals . Pigs, several additional species of rats, and the ancestor of the New Guinea singing dog were introduced with human colonization. Prior to the 1970s, archaeologists called the single Pleistocene landmass by the name Australasia , although this word
19620-604: The entire 25,000 islands of the Pacific Ocean. In this book, he included the Aleutian Islands, the Galápagos Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Kuril Islands and continental islands off the coast of the Americas such as the Channel Islands, the Farallon Islands and Vancouver Island; all of these islands lie in or close to the Pacific Ring of Fire , as is the case with New Guinea and New Zealand, which were also included. In
19800-484: The entire South and Central Pacific area, not just islands ethnographically within Polynesia. He wrote in The Globe Encyclopedia of Universal Information that, "literally interpreted, the name would include all the groups from Sumatra to the Galápagos, together with Australia." Ross further wrote, "and to this vast region the term Oceania has been applied. It is more usual at the present time, however, to exclude
19980-438: The estuary, making it the longest river in New Guinea. The winding, muddy, sluggish river can be navigated for 500 km. Ramu is a 650 km long river. Its lower section is navigable, but its upper flow is high-falling, fast-flowing. The energy of the river is used by a power plant near the city of Kainantu . On the south side, the most significant rivers are Pulau , Digul, Fly, Kikori and Purari . The largest river in
20160-416: The great ocean itself." Conrad Malte-Brun in 1824 defined Oceania as covering Australia, New Zealand, the islands of Polynesia (which then included all the Pacific islands) and the Malay Archipelago. American lexicographer Joseph Emerson Worcester wrote in 1840 that Oceania is "a term applied to a vast number of islands which are widely dispersed in the Pacific Ocean [...] they are considered as forming
20340-589: The highlands were an early and independent center of agriculture, with evidence of irrigation going back at least 10,000 years. Sugarcane was cultivated in New Guinea around 6000 BCE. The gardens of the New Guinea Highlands are ancient, intensive permacultures , adapted to high population densities, very high rainfalls (as high as 10,000 mm per year (400 in/yr)), earthquakes, hilly land, and occasional frost. Complex mulches, crop rotations and tillages are used in rotation on terraces with complex irrigation systems. Western agronomists still do not understand all of
20520-548: The homeland of the Austronesian language family whose speakers colonized significant parts of the region about 6,000 years ago." For political reasons, Taiwan was a member of the Oceania Football Confederation during the 1970s and 1980s, rather than the Asian Football Confederation . Ian Todd's 1974 book Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama also defines oceanic Latin American islands as making up
20700-546: The indigenous inhabitants of the Ryukyu Islands. Some also theorize that Indigenous Australians are related to the Ainu people , who are the original inhabitants of Japan's Hokkaido , the Kuril Islands and the southern part of Sakhalin. In their 2019 book Women and Violence: Global Lives in Focus , Kathleen Nadeau and Sangita Rayamajhi wrote: the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and most of Indonesia are not usually considered to be part of
20880-600: The island are Port Moresby and Jayapura . The island has been known by various names: The name Papua was used to refer to parts of the island before contact with the West. Its etymology is unclear; one theory states that it derived from Tidore , the language used by the Sultanate of Tidore . An expedition by the Sultan of Tidore , together with Sahmardan, the Sangaji of Patani , and
21060-464: The island groups of the world". In his 1857 book A Treatise on Physical Geography , Francis B. Fogg commented that "the Pacific and its dependencies may be said to contain that portion of the globe termed Oceanica or 'the Maritime World', which is divided into Australasia, Malesia and Polynesia." Fogg defined Polynesia as covering the combined islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as
21240-519: The island is separated from Australia by the 150-kilometre (81-nautical-mile; 93-mile) wide Torres Strait , though both landmasses lie on the same continental shelf , and were united during episodes of low sea level in the Pleistocene glaciations as the combined landmass of Sahul . Numerous smaller islands are located to the west and east. The island's name was given by Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez during his maritime expedition of 1545 due to
21420-485: The islands in the [Malay] archipelago, to which certain writers have given the name of Malesia ." It added there was controversy over the exact limits of Oceania, saying that, "scarcely any two geographers appear to be quite agreed upon the subject". British physician and ethnologist James Cowles Prichard claimed in 1847 that the Aleutian Islands and the Kuril Islands form "the northern boundary of this fifth region of
21600-539: The islands of Wallacea and Sundaland (the present Malay Archipelago ) by at least 40,000 years ago. The ancestral Austronesian peoples are believed to have arrived considerably later, approximately 3,500 years ago, as part of a gradual seafaring migration from Southeast Asia , possibly originating in Taiwan. Austronesian-speaking peoples colonized many of the offshore islands to the north and east of New Guinea, such as New Ireland and New Britain , with settlements also on
21780-463: The islands of Melanesia are more commonly grouped together as part of the Australasian biogeographical realm . Papua New Guinea is geographically the closest country to Australia, and is often geologically associated with Australia as it was once physiologically connected. Australia's Indian Ocean external territories of Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands are situated within the bounds of
21960-399: The islands of the Malay Archipelago, while the non-tropical islands were categorized as being North Pacific islands such as Alaska's Kodiak archipelago , the Aleutian Islands, Japan, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Japan's Bonin and Ryukyu Islands are also considered to be subtropical islands , with the main Japanese archipelago being non-tropical. The journal associated the term Oceania with
22140-420: The large island of Australia and numerous others in the [Pacific] Ocean, under the name of Oceania. There are thus six great divisions of the earth — Europe , Asia, Africa , North America, South America and Oceania." American author Samuel Griswold Goodrich wrote in his 1854 book History of All Nations that, "geographers have agreed to consider the island world of the Pacific Ocean as a third continent, under
22320-426: The large island of Australia and the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean" and also that the islands of the Malay Archipelago "should be grouped in with Asia." British linguist Robert Needham Cust argued in 1887 that the Malay Archipelago should be excluded since it had participated in Asian civilization. Cust considered Oceania's four subregions to be Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. New Zealand
22500-470: The largest population of Polynesians in the world, while Australia has the third largest Polynesian population (consisting entirely of immigrants). Modern-day Indigenous Australians are loosely related to Melanesians, and Australia maintains political influence over Melanesia, which is mostly located on the same tectonic plate. Despite this, Australia is rarely seen as a part of the subregion. As with Australia and New Zealand, Melanesia's New Caledonia has
22680-468: The late 20th century, some scholars theorized a long period of interaction, which resulted in many complex changes in genetics, languages, and culture among the peoples. Micronesia began to be settled several millennia ago, although there are competing theories about the origin and arrival of the first settlers. There are numerous difficulties with conducting archaeological excavations in the islands, due to their size, settlement patterns and storm damage. As
22860-403: The least populated of the five parts of the world is diminished in order to increase the number of inhabitants of the most densely populated continent. Regarding Australia and the Pacific, Chambers's New Handy Volume American Encyclopædia observed in 1885 that, "the whole region has sometimes been called Oceania, and sometimes Australasia—generally, however, in modern times, to the exclusion of
23040-519: The main archipelago are not geologically associated with Asia. The book The World and Its Peoples: Australia, New Zealand, Oceania (1966) asserts that, "Japan, Taiwan, the Aleutian Islands, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia [and] the Pacific archipelagos bordering upon the Far East Asian mainland are excluded from Oceania", and that "all the islands lying between Australia and the Americas, including Australia, are part of Oceania." Furthermore,
23220-435: The main exports of the island during this period were resins, spices, slaves and the highly priced feathers of the bird-of-paradise . In a period of constant conflict called 'hongi wars', in which rival villages or kingdoms would invoke the name of Tidore Sultan, rightly, for punitive expeditions for not fulfilling their tributary obligations, or opportunitively for competitions over resources and prestige. Sultan Nuku , one of
23400-407: The main islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago , including Makira and possibly the smaller islands farther to the east. Particularly along the north coast of New Guinea and in the islands north and east of New Guinea, the Austronesian people , who had migrated into the area somewhat more than 3,000 years ago, came into contact with these pre-existing populations of Papuan-speaking peoples. In
23580-679: The mainland of the country of Papua New Guinea . 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
23760-546: The major continental divisions of the world, but the name "Australia and Oceania" is used. Their definition does not include all of Australia's external territories, but is otherwise the same as the UN's definition, and is also used for statistical purposes. The Pacific Islands Forum expanded during the early 2010s, and areas that were already included in the UN definition of Oceania, such as French Polynesia, gained membership. French writer Gustave d'Eichthal remarked in 1844 that, "the boundaries of Oceania are in reality those of
23940-472: The mammal species (69%) are endemic. New Guinea has 578 species of breeding birds, of which 324 species are endemic. The island's frogs are one of the most poorly known vertebrate groups, totalling 282 species, but this number is expected to double or even triple when all species have been documented. New Guinea has a rich diversity of coral life and 1,200 species of fish have been found. Also about 600 species of reef-building coral—the latter equal to 75 percent of
24120-535: The most famous Tidore sultans who rebelled against Dutch colonization, called himself "Sultan of Tidore and Papua", during his revolt in 1780s. He commanded loyalty from both Moluccan and Papuan chiefs, especially those of Raja Ampat Islands, from his base in Gebe . Following Tidore's subjugation as Dutch tributary, much of the territory it claimed in western part of New Guinea came under Dutch rule as part of Dutch East Indies. The first known European contact with New Guinea
24300-544: The mouth of the river in 1845. The total length of the river is 1,050 km. Smaller boats can sail 900 km on the river. The estuary section, which decomposes into islands, is 70 km wide. The tide of the sea can have an effect of up to 300 kilometers. Strickland , a tributary of the Fly, reaches the Papuan Plain through wild gorges. Fly and Strickland together form the largest river in New Guinea. The many rivers flowing into
24480-495: The much less developed economies of Kiribati , Papua New Guinea , Tuvalu , Vanuatu , and Western New Guinea . The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, and the largest city is Sydney . Puncak Jaya in Indonesia is the highest peak in Oceania at 4,884 m (16,024 ft). The first settlers of Australia, New Guinea, and the large islands just to the east arrived more than 60,000 years ago. Oceania
24660-572: The name Oceania." In this book, the other two continents were categorized as being the New World (the Americas) and the Old World ( Afro-Eurasia ). In his 1879 book Australasia , British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon" and that "Australia forms its central and most important feature." He did not explicitly label Oceania
24840-601: The nearby Malay Archipelago. Australia's Indian Ocean external territory Heard Island and McDonald Islands lie on the Antarctic Plate and are also thought of as being in Antarctica or no region at all, due to their extreme geographical isolation. The World Factbook define Heard Island and McDonald Islands as part of Antarctica, while placing Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands as the westernmost extent of Oceania. Norfolk Island , an external territory of Australia,
25020-517: The north coast of Papua proper, the Schouten Islands or Biak Island. When the Dutch colonized the main island as part of the Dutch East Indies , they called it Nieuw Guinea . The name Irian was used in the Indonesian language to refer to the island and Indonesian province, as Irian Barat (West Irian) Province and later Irian Jaya Province. The name Irian was suggested during
25200-623: The numerous isles of the Pacific, lying south east of Asia." Olney divided up Oceania into three groups; Australasia (which included Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand), Malesia and Polynesia (which included the combined islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia in his definition). Publication Missionary Review of the World claimed in 1895 that Oceania was divided up into five groups; Australasia, Malesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. It did not consider Hawaii to be part of Polynesia, due to its geographic isolation, commenting that Oceania also included, "isolated groups and islands, such as
25380-510: The organization's scope encompassed all non-self governing islands below the equator to the east of Papua New Guinea (which itself was included in the scope and then known as Dutch New Guinea ). Easter Island and the Galápagos Islands were defined by James as falling within the organization's geographical parameters. The 2007 book Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West , by New Zealand Pacific scholar Ron Crocombe , defined
25560-426: The other islands, which were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans and mostly being used as prisons for convicts. Additionally, the book includes Taiwan and the entire Malay Archipelago as part of Oceania. While not oceanic in nature, Taiwan and Malay Archipelago countries like Indonesia and the Philippines share Austronesian ethnolinguistic origins with Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, hence their inclusion in
25740-544: The partial elected New Guinea Council took office on 5 April 1961. The Council decided on the name of West Papua ( Papua Barat ) for the territory, along with an emblem, flag , and anthem to complement those of the Netherlands. On 1 October 1962, after some military interventions and negotiations, the Dutch handed over the territory to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority , until 1 May 1963, when Indonesia took control. The territory
25920-475: The parts of the region together. John Eperjesi's 2005 book The Imperialist Imaginary says that it has "been used by Western cartographers since the mid-19th century to give order to the complexities of the Pacific area." In the 19th century, many geographers divided Oceania into mostly racially based subdivisions: Australasia , Malesia (encompassing the Malay Archipelago ), Melanesia , Micronesia and Polynesia . The 2011 book Maritime Adaptations of
26100-566: The political significance of the Aleutian Islands, which were invaded by the Japanese military in World War II, and categorized New Zealand's Antipodes Islands , Auckland Islands , Bounty Islands , Campbell Islands , Chatham Island and Kermadec Islands as being non-tropical islands of the South Pacific, along with Australia's Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. The Kermadec Islands, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island are also considered to be subtropical islands. Other non-tropical areas below
26280-480: The practices, and it has been noted that native gardeners are as, or even more, successful than most scientific farmers in raising certain crops. There is evidence that New Guinea gardeners invented crop rotation well before western Europeans. A unique feature of New Guinea permaculture is the silviculture of Casuarina oligodon , a tall, sturdy native ironwood tree, suited to use for timber and fuel, with root nodules that fix nitrogen. Pollen studies show that it
26460-455: The principal large sovereignties of the area. It further states: In its broadest definition Oceania embraces all islands and island groups of the Pacific Ocean that lie between Asia and the two American continents. In popular usage, however, the designation has a more restricted application. The islands of the North Pacific, such as the Aleutians and the Kuriles, usually are excluded. In addition,
26640-524: The region of Oceania as it is understood today. These regions are usually considered to be part of Maritime Southeast Asia. Although these regions, as well as the large East Asian islands of Taiwan, Hainan and the Japanese archipelago, have varying degrees of cultural connections. In Reptiles and Amphibians of the Pacific Islands: A Comprehensive Guide (2013), George R. Zug claimed that "a standard definition of Oceania includes Australia, Papua New Guinea,
26820-549: The region of Wanin and Sran, in eastern Nusantara as part of Majapahit 's tributary. This 'Wanin' has been identified with the Onin Peninsula, part of the Bomberai Peninsula near the city of Fakfak . while ' Sran ' had been identified as region of Kowiai , just south of Onin peninsula. The sultans of Tidore , in the Maluku Islands , claimed sovereignty over various coastal parts of the island. During Tidore's rule,
27000-477: The resemblance of the indigenous peoples of the island to those in the African region of Guinea . The eastern half of the island is the major land mass of the nation of Papua New Guinea . The western half, known as Western New Guinea , forms a part of Indonesia and is organized as the provinces of Papua , Central Papua , Highland Papua , South Papua , Southwest Papua , and West Papua . The two major cities on
27180-532: The richest coral reefs on the planet. The entire length of the New Guinea Highlands system passes through New Guinea as a vast watershed. The northern rivers flow into the Pacific Ocean , the southern rivers into the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Papua . On the north side, the largest rivers are the Mamberamo, Sepik and Ramu. Mamberamo was born from the confluence of two large inland rivers. Tariku comes from
27360-582: The same biogeographical realm as the geographically adjacent Micronesia, and are often grouped in with the subregion because of this. Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands who migrated from Africa to Asia c. 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia c. 50,000 years ago. They are believed to be among the earliest human migrations out of Africa . Although they likely migrated to Australia through Southeast Asia they are not demonstrably related to any known Asian or Polynesian population. There
27540-467: The seas bordering New Guinea: The first inhabitants Indigenous people of New Guinea , from whom the Papuan people are probably descended, adapted to the range of ecologies and, in time, developed one of the earliest known agricultures. Remains of this agricultural system, in the form of ancient irrigation systems in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, are being studied by archaeologists. Research indicates that
27720-418: The series of sovereign island nations fringing Asia (Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, East Malaysia, the Republic of Indonesia) are not ordinarily considered to be part of the area. In 1948, American military journal Armed Forces Talk broke the islands of the Pacific up into five major subdivisions; Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the non-tropical Islands. The Indonesia subdivision consisted of
27900-618: The south at the border with British New Guinea . The German, Dutch and British colonial administrators each attempted to suppress the still-widespread practices of inter-village warfare and headhunting within their respective territories. In 1905, the British government transferred some administrative responsibility over southeast New Guinea to Australia (which renamed the area " Territory of Papua "); and, in 1906, transferred all remaining responsibility to Australia. During World War I , Australian forces seized German New Guinea, which in 1920 became
28080-488: The south, and the Palau Islands in the west to the Galápagos Islands in the east." Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and New Caledonia (which is geologically associated with New Zealand) were all excluded, as these areas are descendants of the ancient Pangaea supercontinent, along with landmasses such as the Americas and Afro-Eurasia . Volcanic islands which are geologically associated with continental landmasses, such as
28260-513: The surface area of this wide definition was greater than that of Asia and Europe combined, the land area was only a little greater than that of Europe. American geographer Sophia S. Cornell claimed that the Aleutian Islands were not part of Oceania in 1857. She stated that Oceania was divided up into three groups; Australasia (which included Australia, New Zealand, and the Melanesian islands), Malesia (which included all present-day countries within
28440-621: The term "Pacific Islands" as being islands in the South Pacific Commission, and stated that such a definition "does not include Galápagos and other [oceanic] islands off the Pacific coast of the Americas; these were uninhabited when Europeans arrived, then integrated with a South American country and have almost no contact with other Pacific Islands." He adds, "Easter Island still participates in some Pacific Island affairs because its people are Polynesian." Thomas Sebeok 's two volume 1971 book Linguistics in Oceania defines Easter Island,
28620-513: The term Oceania "promotes a broader concept that has room for Australia and New Zealand." American marine geologist Anthony A. P. Koppers wrote in the 2009 book Encyclopedia of Islands that, "as a whole, the islands of the Pacific Region are referred to as Oceania, the tenth continent on earth. Inherent to their remoteness and because of the wide variety of island types, the Pacific Islands have developed unique social, biological and geological characteristics." Koppers considered Oceania to encompass
28800-416: The west to the east and Taritatu from the east. These rivers meander through swamps with huge internal descents and then merge. The Mamberamo thus formed reaches the ocean by breaking through the Coastal Mountains. Mamberamo River is navigable to Marine Falls. The Sepik is a much more important river. Similarly, it collects water from a spacious pool. It is 1,100 kilometers from the Victor Emanuel Range to
28980-468: The western part of the island in present-day Indonesia, and also claimed the territory for the King of Spain. A successive European claim occurred in 1828, when the Netherlands formally claimed the western half of the island as Netherlands New Guinea . Dutch colonial authority built Fort Du Bus an administrative and trading post established near Lobo, Triton Bay, but by 1835 had been abandoned. Considering that New Guinea had little economic value for them,
29160-436: The western part of the island is Digul . It originates from the Star Mountains , which rise to an altitude of 4,700 m. The coastal plain is bordered by a swamp world hundreds of kilometers wide. Digul is the main transport route to the fertile hills and mountains within the island. The river Fly is born near the eastern branches of the Digul. It is named after one of the ships of the English Royal Fleet, which first sailed into
29340-537: The western side, and by the Sepik on the eastern side. The more extensive southern lowlands are drained by a larger number of rivers, principally the Digul in the west and the Fly in the east. The largest island offshore, Dolak , 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
29520-472: The word papua is often said to be derived from the Malay word papua or pua-pua , meaning "frizzly-haired", referring to the very curly hair of the island's inhabitants. However Sollewijn Gelpke in 1993 considered this unlikely as it had been used earlier, and he instead derived it from the Biak phrase sup i babwa , which means "the land below [the sunset]", and refers to the Raja Ampat Islands . When Portuguese and Spanish explorers arrived via
29700-418: The world and reached the Philippines , the Mariana Islands , and other islands of Oceania. New Guinea New Guinea ( Tok Pisin : Niugini ; Hiri Motu : Niu Gini ; Indonesian : Papua , fossilized Nugini , or historically Irian ) is the world's second-largest island , with an area of 785,753 km (303,381 sq mi). Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean ,
29880-404: The world and, having never seen Europeans before, initially believed the explorers to be spirits of the dead due to the local belief that a person's skin turned white when they died and crossed into the land of the dead. Netherlands New Guinea and the Australian territories (the eastern half ) were invaded in 1942 by the Japanese . The Netherlands were defeated by that stage and did not put up
30060-566: The world's known total. The entire coral area covers 18 million hectares off a peninsula in northwest New Guinea. As of 2020, the Western portion of New Guinea, Papua and West Papua, accounts for 54% of the island's primary forest and about 51% of the island's total tree cover, according to satellite data. According to the WWF , New Guinea can be divided into twelve terrestrial ecoregions : The WWF and Nature Conservancy divide New Guinea into five freshwater ecoregions : The WWF and Nature Conservancy identify several marine ecoregions in
30240-415: The world's most floristically diverse island, surpassing Madagascar (11,488), Borneo (11,165), Java (4,598), and the Philippines (9,432). Biogeographically , New Guinea is part of Australasia rather than the Indomalayan realm, although New Guinea's flora has many more affinities with Asia than its fauna, which is overwhelmingly Australian. Botanically, New Guinea is considered part of Malesia ,
30420-408: The world, and with the coasts of Asia and America completing its literal termination." However, he wrote that these islands "are not usually reckoned as belonging to it, because they are known to be inhabited by races of people who came immediately from the adjacent continents and are unconnected with those tribes of the human race who peopled the remote islands of this great ocean." He added that Hawaii
30600-404: Was first explored by Europeans from the 16th century onward. Portuguese explorers, between 1512 and 1526, reached the Tanimbar Islands , some of the Caroline Islands and west New Guinea . Spanish and Dutch explorers followed, then British and French. On his first voyage in the 18th century, James Cook , who later arrived at the highly developed Hawaiian Islands , went to Tahiti and followed
30780-416: Was achieved when this landmass formed part of the Sahul continent , connected to the island of New Guinea via a land bridge. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, which are at the northernmost tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea . The earliest definite human remains found in Australia are that of Mungo Man , which have been dated at c. 40,000 years old. It
30960-469: Was adopted during an ancient period of extreme deforestation. In more recent millennia, another wave of people arrived on the shores of New Guinea. These were the Austronesian people , who had spread down from Taiwan , through the South-east Asian archipelago , colonising many of the islands on the way. The Austronesian people had technology and skills extremely well adapted to ocean voyaging and Austronesian language speaking people are present along much of
31140-401: Was by Portuguese and Spanish sailors in the 16th century. In 1526–27, Portuguese explorer Jorge de Meneses saw the western tip of New Guinea and named it ilhas dos Papuas . In 1528, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra also recorded its sighting when trying to return from Tidore to New Spain . In 1545, Spaniard Íñigo Ortíz de Retes sailed along the north coast of New Guinea as far as
31320-432: Was categorized by him as being in Polynesia; and the only country in his definition of Australasia was Australia. His definition of Polynesia included both Easter Island and Hawaii, which had not yet been annexed by either Chile or the United States. The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society stated in 1892 that Australia was a large island within Oceania rather than a small continent. It additionally commented: it
31500-502: Was defined as Australia and an ensemble of various Pacific Islands, "particularly those in the central and south Pacific [but] never those in the extreme north, for example the Aleutian chain." In the Pacific Ocean Handbook (1945), author Eliot Grinnell Mears claimed, "it is customary to exclude the Aleutians of the North Pacific, the American coastal islands and the Netherlands East Indies ", and that he included Australia and New Zealand in Oceania for "scientific reasons; Australia's fauna
31680-404: Was empowered to protect the rights of Papuans, raise the status of women in Papua, and to ease religious tensions in Papua; block grants were given for the implementation of the Law as much as $ 266 million in 2004. The Indonesian courts ' enforcement of the Law on Special Autonomy blocked further creation of subdivisions of Papua: although President Megawati Sukarnoputri was able to create
31860-427: Was inhabited in prehistoric times by either Melanesians or Polynesians, and is geographically adjacent to the islands of Melanesia. The current inhabitants are mostly European Australians, and the UN categorize it as being in the Australasia subregion. The 1982 edition of the South Pacific Handbook , by David Stanley, groups Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Hawaiʻi together under an "Anglonesia" category. This
32040-421: Was renamed West Irian ( Irian Barat ) and then Irian Jaya. In 1969, Indonesia, under the 1962 New York Agreement , organised a referendum named the Act of Free Choice , in which the military hand picked Papuan tribal elders to vote for integration with Indonesia. There has been significant reported resistance to Indonesian integration and occupation, both through civil disobedience (such as publicly raising
32220-472: Was the most northerly area to be inhabited by races associated with Oceania. The 1926 book Modern World History, 1776–1926 , by Alexander Clarence Flick, considered Oceania to include all islands in the Pacific, and associated the term with the Malay Archipelago, the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, the Aleutian Islands, Japan's Ryukyu Islands , Taiwan and the Kuril Islands. He further included in his definition Sakhalin , an island which
32400-411: Was usually a best-of-three playoff; if other teams competed, a round-robin and a knockout stage was employed. In 2009, the Oceania Basketball Federation changed this format to a two-game, home-and-away playoff between the two countries, with aggregate score as the tiebreaker should the teams split the series. Beginning in 2017, all FIBA continental championships for men were held on a four-year cycle, and
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