Largest Islands of Papua New Guinea

Geography

New Guinea is an island to the north of the Australian mainland, south of the equator. It is isolated by the Arafura Sea to the west, and the Torres Strait and Coral Sea to the east. Sometimes considered to be the easternmost island of the Indonesian archipelago, it lies north of Australia's Top End, the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York Peninsula, and west of the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islands archipelago. Biologically, New Guinea may also be considered contiguous with northern Australia, as there is a continuity of flora and fauna between the two regions.

History

Archaeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea perhaps 60,000 years ago, although this is under debate. They came probably by sea from Southeast Asia during the Last Glacial Period, when the sea was lower and distances between islands shorter.

The first inhabitants, 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 the highlands were an early and independent center of agriculture, with evidence of irrigation going back at least 10,000 years.

Biodiversity and ecology

With some 786,000 km2 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 the continent of Australia, which was until fairly recent geological times part of the same landmass (see Australia-New Guinea for an overview).

Demographics

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 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.

History

The first inhabitants of the archipelago arrived around 30,000–40,000 years ago. They may have traveled from New Guinea, by boat across the Bismarck Sea or via a temporary land bridge, created by an uplift in the Earth's crust. Later arrivals included the Lapita people, the direct ancestors of the Austronesian peoples of Polynesia, eastern Micronesia, and Island Melanesia.

The first European to visit these islands was Dutch explorer Jacob le Maire in 1616. The islands remained unsettled by western Europeans until they were annexed as part of the German protectorate of German New Guinea in 1884. The area was named in honour of the Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

On 13 March 1888, a volcano erupted on Ritter Island causing a megatsunami.

Geography

New Britain extends from 148°18′28″ to 152°24′15″ E longitude and from 4°08′00″ to 6°18′57″ S latitude. It is crescent-shaped, approximately 520 km (320 mi) along its southeastern coastline, and from 29 to 146 km (18 to 91 mi) wide, not including a small central peninsula. The air-line distance from west to east is 477 km (296 mi). The island is the 38th largest in the world, with an area of 35,140 km2 (13,570 sq mi).

Steep cliffs form some sections of the coastline; in others the mountains are further inland, and the coastal area is flat and bordered by coral reefs. The highest point, at 2,334 metres (7,657 ft), is the stratovolcano Mount Ulawun in the east. Most of the terrain is covered with tropical rainforest, and several large rivers are fed by the high rainfall.

History

In research science, there is evidence with Pleistocene-era cultural deposits discovered in open-site excavations in near Yombon, which show that New Britain has been inhabited by indigenous Papuans for thousands of years, with human occupation dating back to 21,000 BC.

William Dampier became the first known British man to visit New Britain on 27 February 1700; he dubbed the island with the Latin name Nova Britannia (lit. 'New Britain').

Whaling ships from Britain, Australia and the United States called at the island in the 19th century for food, water and wood. The first on record was the Roscoe in 1822. The last known whaling visitor was the Palmetto in 1881.

Ecology

The island is part of two ecoregions. The New Britain–New Ireland lowland rain forests extend from sea level to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) elevation. The New Britain–New Ireland montane rain forests cover the mountains of New Britain above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) elevation.

Forests on New Britain have been rapidly destroyed in recent years, largely to clear land for oil palm plantations.

Lowland rainforest has been hardest hit, with nearly a quarter of the forest below 100 metres (330 ft) disappearing between 1989 and 2000. If those rates of deforestation continue, it is estimated that all forest below 200 metres (660 ft) will be cleared by 2060.

History

The islands were discovered by a Spanish expedition led by Luis Váez de Torres in 1606, that was part of the Fernandez de Quiros fleet which had sailed from South America in search of Australia. The Torres expedition visited various islands including Basilaki Island, which he named San Buenaventura in July 1606. It is possible that Malay and Chinese sailors also visited the islands earlier. More than a century later, in 1768, Louis Antoine de Bougainville visited the islands and named them for Louis XV, the king of France. Visits were also paid by Admiral Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1793 and Captain Owen Stanley in 1849.

The 1942 Battle of Coral Sea was fought nearby, after Japanese occupation in the same year. The Deboyne Islands were the site of the 1942 Raids on Deboyne.

History

The group was named for the French navigator Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, who, in his ship the Espérance, passed through the area in 1792 while searching for his missing compatriot, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse. Almost a century later, in 1874, Captain John Moresby of HMS Basilisk made a running survey of the west coast of the islands and became the first European to make landfall.

From Dobu Island, local men were recruited to work in gold mines and on copra plantations. In 1891, the Methodist Church of Australia established a mission station on Dobu Island. Another mission was established in 1898 at Bwaidoga, Mud Bay, on the south coast of Goodenough Island.

Geology

Geologically the islands are largely made up of rock that probably once belonged to the northern edge of the Australian plate that was thrust deep into the Earth's crust by plate collision.

The burial of these rocks to great depths (where they also encountered correspondingly high temperatures) metamorphosed the rocks to eclogite facies: >2GPa and >700˚C. Specifically, these islands play host to the youngest known coesite-eclogite sample; CA-TIMS dating of zircons within this sample dates its formation to ~5Ma, meaning it has been exhumed from a depth of ~100 km at the remarkable rate of ~20mm/yr.

The rock at the centre of the tall domes in these islands was thus recently very deep in the Earth.

Description

The three principal islands, from northwest to southeast, are Goodenough (Nidula), then across Moresby Strait to Fergusson (Moratau), the largest of the three, and across Dawson Strait to Normanby Island (Duau).

In addition there are numerous small islands and reefs. Sanaroa and Dobu are the most significant of the smaller islands, while Sori or Wild is named for HMS Challenger's artist, John James Wild. The highest peak in the group is the 2,536 metres (8,320 ft) Mount Vineuo on Goodenough Island.

The D'Entrecasteaux Islands are volcanically active, with a number of areas of historic/geologic volcanism and active geothermal fields. Fergusson Island has three volcanic masses over 1,828 m (5,997 ft) high.

Geography

Bougainville is the largest island of the Solomon Islands archipelago. It is part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion. Bougainville and the nearby island of Buka are a single landmass separated by a deep 300-metre (980 ft) wide strait. The island has an area of 9,000 km2 (3,500 sq mi), and there are several active, dormant or inactive volcanoes that can rise to 2,400 m (7,900 ft). Bagana (1,750 metres [5,740 ft]) in the north central part of Bougainville is conspicuously active, spewing out gas that is visible for many kilometres. In 2013, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake was detected on the Bougainville Island; its epicenter was located 57 kilometers (35.4 miles) south of Panguna, a town on Bougainville Island.

History

During the Last Ice Age, present-day Bougainville Island was part of a single landmass known as "Greater Bougainville", which spanned from the northern tip of Buka Island to the Nggela Islands. The earliest evidence of human settlement is at Kilu Cave on Buka Island, where the earliest remains are from 26,700 to 18,100 BCE. The first settlers were Melanesian people, likely related to modern Papuans and Indigenous Australians. In the 2nd millennium BCE, Austronesian people arrived, bringing with them domesticated pigs, chickens, dogs, and obsidian tools.

The first European contact with Bougainville was in 1768, when the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville arrived and named the main island after himself.

Ecology

Bougainville Island is primarily forested. Copper mining on the island by a Rio Tinto-owned mining operation in Panguna was known for their environmental impacts due to heavy metals. More recently, deforestation to feed the growing population has affected the flow of many rivers on the island. The United Nations Environment Programme has offered to facilitate the cleanup of the Panguna mine and explore reopening it with more stringent environmental standards.

Demographics

The majority of people on Bougainville are Christian, an estimated 75–80% being Roman Catholic as of 2015, and a substantial minority belonging to the United Church of Papua New Guinea and the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

There are many indigenous languages in Bougainville Province, belonging to three language families. The languages of the northern end of the island, and some scattered around the coast, belong to the Austronesian family. The languages of the north-central and southern lobes of Bougainville Island belong to the North and South Bougainville families.

The most widely spoken Austronesian language is Halia and its dialects, spoken on the island of Buka and the Selau peninsula of Northern Bougainville.

Geography

The island is part of the Bismarck Archipelago and is often described as having the shape of a musket. New Ireland is surrounded by the Bismarck Sea in the southwest and by the Pacific Ocean in the northeast.

For much of its 360 km (220 mi) in length, the island's width varies between less than 10 km (6.2 mi) to 40 km (25 mi), yet the central mountainous spine is very steep and rugged. The highest peak is Mount Taron in the Hans Meyer Range (2,340 m, 7,680 ft). Other mountain ranges are Tirpitz, Schleinitz, Verron and Rossel. The island lies between two and five degrees south of the equator. The original land cover was primarily dense rainforest.

History

The first inhabitants of the Bismarck Archipelago arrived around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now Papua New Guinea. Later arrivals included the Lapita people approximately 3,000 years ago. Three distinct cultural practices are characteristic of the native people of New Ireland: Kabai, Malagan and Tubuan.

In 1616 the Dutch sailors Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten were the first Europeans to set foot on the island, but it was only recognized as part of an island separate from New Guinea by William Dampier in 1700. Philip Carteret recognized it as separate from New Britain (then New Pomerania) in 1767, and Louis Antoine de Bougainville anchored here eleven months later, on 6 July 1768.

Ecology

The island is part of two ecoregions. The New Britain–New Ireland lowland rain forests extend from sea level to 1000 meters elevation. The New Britain-New Ireland montane rain forests cover the mountains of New Ireland above 1000 meters elevation.

Widespread deforestation and degradation of lowland rainforest is an issue on New Ireland and the other eastern islands of Papua New Guinea (New Britain, Bougainville Island) as well as on Papua New Guinea mainland. Nearly 60% of their forests are accessible to logging, and by 2002, 63% of the accessible forests had been deforested or degraded.

The island hosts 8 endemic landbirds, some of these only rarely documented scientifically.

History

The first recorded sighting of Manus Island by Europeans was by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Saavedra on board the carrack Florida on 15 August 1528, while trying to return to New Spain from the Maluku Islands. Saavedra circled Manus Island, and landed possibly on Murai islet to the south west. Murai was found to be inhabited and some natives came out in canoes, attacking with bows and arrows. Three of these men were captured by the Spaniards, and were returned by Saavedra to the same island, on his second attempt to return to North America the following year. Manus Island was charted as Urays la Grande or Big Urays, which is probably a projection of Murai to signify "big Murai".

Geography

The land is covered with the volcanic andesitic lava. The soil is very fertile and used for growing food crop and cash crop. The island is full of betel-nut, mustard plant and lime. The island is also known for the view from the mountain looking down to Madang town.

The latest eruptions on this island occurred in the 1970s. The 1974–1975 eruption produced a large volume of lava which covered almost 70% of the inner caldera's floor, while 1979 produced no lava flow, but killed two volcanologists, Robin Cooke and Elias Ravian. The volcano erupted as recently as February 26, 2013.

The population of approximately 70,000 is mostly Lutheran and Catholic and speaks the two languages Waskia and Takia. Most people also speak Tok Pisin, and English is taught in the schools.

History

The first recorded sighting by Europeans of Karkar Island was by the Spanish navigator Iñigo Órtiz de Retes on 10 August 1545 when on board of the carrack San Juan tried to return from Tidore to New Spain.

It was later visited by Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire and called "High island". In 1643 Abel Tasman passed the island. William Dampier visited the island, probably in 1699. The volcano erupted in 1895.

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese occupied the island. The Australian 37th/52nd Battalion landed on 2 June 1944, to find that the Japanese had evacuated the island and Australian 5th Division troops landed on the island at Biu Bay and Kavilo Bay on 6 June 1944.