BOUGAINVILLE ISLAND

largest of the Solomon Islands, near the northern end of that chain, in the Solomon Sea, southwestern Pacific. Together with Buka and the Kilinailau, Tauu, Nukumanu, Nuguria, and Nissan groups, it constitutes a province of Papua New Guinea. Bougainville is 75 miles (120 km) long and 4060 miles (6595 km) wide and has a total land area of 3,880 square miles (10,045 square km). The Emperor Range, with its highest peaks at Balbi (9,000 feet ) and Bagana (6,560 feet), both active volcanoes, occupies the northern half of the island, while the Crown Prince Range, with its highest peak at Takuan (7,358 feet), occupies the southern half. Coral reefs fringe the shore. The island and the passage between it and Choiseul Island (southeast) were discovered in 1768 by the French navigator Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, after whom both were named. Placed under German administration in 1898 as the result of an Anglo-German treaty on Samoa, it was occupied by Australian forces in 1914 and included in an Australian mandate in 1920. The Japanese occupied the island early in 1942. Although U.S. troops had essentially overtaken it by March 1944, remnants of the Japanese garrison remained until the end of the war. Bougainville was returned to Australian administration as part of the UN Trust Territory of New Guinea after the war, and when Australia granted independence to Papua New Guinea in 1975, Bougainville became part of that new nation. Secessionist sentiments surfaced on Bougainville, fanned by islanders' dissatisfaction with their share of the revenues from a copper-mining operation at Panguna on Bougainville. A small rebel insurrection that began on Bougainville in 1988 succeeded in closing the mines the following year. Despite the Papuan government's willingness to grant substantial autonomy to Bougainville, negotiations between the two sides were inconclusive, and the low-level conflict continued into the late 1990s. Arawa is the island's administrative headquarters, although Kieta supports most of the commercial enterprise of the area. Copra, together with some cocoa and timber, is exported from Kieta. Copper deposits at Panguna were the basis for one of the world's largest open-cut mines; production began in 1972 and by the early 1980s accounted for more than half of Papua New Guinea's total export earnings. Aropa airport, just south of Kieta, has regular air service to Rabaul, New Britain. Pop. (1980 est.) 109,000.