PACIFIC ISLANDS

island geographic region of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises three ethnogeographic regionsMelanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesiabut conventionally excludes the neighbouring island continent of Australia. The Pacific Island region covers almost 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of land, of which New Zealand and New Guinea island make up approximately 90 percent, and millions of square miles of ocean. It is a mixture of independent states, associated states, integral parts of non-Pacific Island nations, and dependent states. The great arc of islands located north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is called Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, black, and nesos, island) for the predominantly dark-skinned peoples of New Guinea island, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), New Caledonia, and Fiji. North of the Equator and east of the Philippines is another island arc that ranges from Palau (Belau), Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the west eastward through the Federated States of Micronesia (the Caroline Islands), Nauru, and the Marshall Islands to Kiribati (the Gilbert Islands). This is Micronesia, so named because of the smaller size of these islands and atolls. In the eastern Pacific, largely enclosed within a huge triangle formed by the Hawaiian Islands in the north, New Zealand to the southwest, and Easter Island far to the east, are the many (poly) islands of Polynesia. Other components of this widely scattered collection, again generally from west to east, are Tuvalu (the Ellice Islands), Wallis and Futuna Islands, Tokelau, Western Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Niue, the Cook Islands, and French Polynesia (including the Society, Tuamotu, and Marquesas islands). In Polynesia, the last section of the Pacific Ocean to be inhabited, the islanders share a cultural tradition that relates them closely to many Fijians. Fiji, indeed, is actually a transitional territory between Melanesia to the west and Polynesia to the east. The estimated population of the Pacific Islands (excluding New Zealand, Indonesian New Guinea, and the Hawaiian Islands, but including Papua New Guinea) was 6,900,000 in 1995. The Pacific Islands are treated in a number of Macropaedia articles. For treatment of the region and individual island groups and states, see Pacific Islands. For treatment of Hawaii, see United States of America: Hawaii. For treatment of New Zealand, see New Zealand. For current history and for statistics about the administration, society, and economy of the Pacific Islands, see Britannica Book Of The Year. geographic region of the Pacific Ocean. The term is commonly accepted as including all of those islands in the Pacific that are collectively referred to as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, also sometimes known as Oceania. This usage rules out the Australian island continent, the Asia-related Indonesian, Philippine, and Japanese archipelagoes, and the Ryukyu, Bonin-Volcano, and Kuril island arcs that project seaward from Japan. Neither does the term encompass the Aleutian chain connecting Kamchatka and Alaska nor such isolated islands of the Pacific Ocean as Juan Fernndez off the coast of South America. Although the Pacific Ocean makes up nearly one-third of the Earth's surface, the Pacific Islands discussed in this article add up to a little less than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square kilometres) of land area. New Guinea, the largest island in the world after Greenland, represents 70 percent of this total, and New Zealand accounts for 20 percent. The remaining 10 percent of the land area of the Pacific is divided among more than 10,000 scattered islands. The Pacific Islands lie mainly in the area bounded by latitudes 23 N and 27 S and longitudes 130 E and 125 W. Exceptions to this are New Zealand, which lies in the southern temperate zone, and Easter Island, which stands in isolation at longitude 109 W, almost halfway to South America. (Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii are treated in separate articles.) For convenient reference, the Pacific Islands are customarily divided into three ethnogeographic groupings. The great arc of islands located north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is called Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, black, and nesos, island) after the predominantly dark-skinned peoples of New Guinea, the Bismarcks, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides), New Caledonia, and Fiji. North of the Equator and east of the Philippines is another island arc that ranges from Palau (Belau) and the Marianas in the west through the Carolines and Marshalls all the way to Kiribati (formerly the Gilbert Islands). This is Micronesia, so named because of the smaller size of these islands and atolls. In the eastern Pacific, and largely enclosed within a huge triangle formed by Hawaii in the north, New Zealand to the south, and Easter Island far to the east, are the many (poly-) islands of Polynesia. Other components of this widely scattered collection are Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia (including the Society, Tuamotu, and Marquesas Islands), and the Cook Islands. In this, the last section of the Pacific Ocean to be inhabited, the islanders share a cultural tradition that relates them closely to many Fijians. Fiji, indeed, is actually a transitional territory between Melanesia and Polynesia. Since the 16th century, the Western world has shown an interest in the Pacific Islands that has been expressed in the activities of explorers, scientists, artists and writers, missionaries, commercial entrepreneurs, and imperialistic statesmen. The variety of the Pacific's environments, both physical and biotic, continues to be a laboratory for experimenting in social and cultural adaptation. Though insularity has often dominated this process, its effect has been offset by the opportunities for human contact and exchange in many directions across the ocean's expanse. In the 20th century, the islands and their inhabitants have continued to attract international interest, although for new reasons, such as their strategic significance in the relationships of the world powers in Europe, Asia, and America. Attention has also centred on the problems created for Pacific islanders by nature's limitation of land and resources in the face of expanding populations and rising standards of living. Additional reading Ron Crocombe, The South Pacific (1983); and Frederica M. Bunge and Melinda W. Cooke (eds.), Oceania, a Regional Study, 2nd ed. (1985), provide comprehensive information. Large-scale maps are found in Atlas of the South Pacific, 2nd ed. (1986), published by the New Zealand government. Herold J. Wiens, Atoll Environment and Ecology (1962), explores the physical characteristics of Pacific Islands environments. The classic demographic study is Norma McArthur, Island Populations of the Pacific (1967, reprinted 1983); see also Vern Carroll (ed.), Pacific Atoll Populations (1975). On physical anthropology, see William Howells, The Pacific Islanders (1973). F.R. Fosberg (ed.), Man's Place in the Island Ecosystem (1963); and Douglas L. Oliver, Oceania: The Native Cultures of Australia and the Pacific Islands, 2 vol. (1989), survey aspects of Pacific Islands societies. University of the South Pacific, Institute of Pacific Studies, Pacific Tourism, as Islanders See It (1980), analyzes the impact of tourism. Current writings about the area are found in Pacific Islands Business (monthly, Fiji); Pacific Magazine (bimonthly, Hawaii); and Pacific Islands Monthly (Australia). John Carter (ed.), Pacific Islands Yearbook, 15th ed. (1984), is a detailed reference work on contemporary conditions and events. For further research, see C.R.H. Taylor, A Pacific Bibliography: Printed Matter Relating to the Native Peoples of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, 2nd ed. (1965); and Bibliographie de l'Ocanie, published irregularly by the Socit des Ocanistes in Paris. Administrative institutions By the mid-20th century, overpopulation in a region of fragmented land areas, widely scattered communities, poor communications, inadequate resources, and rising costs of living posed a fundamental dilemma. Political responsibility for the situation rested largely with the five metropolitan nations (Australia, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) administering the possessions, protectorates, and trusteeships that perpetuated a colonial heritage that was no longer popular. The amelioration of social and economic conditions seemed to await changes in the political environment, while the question of the five nations' willingness to share their territorial interests with the emerging native elites remained undecided. Changing administrations Two United Nations trust territories were the first to achieve sovereignty as independent nationsWestern Samoa (now Samoa) in 1962 and Nauru in 1968. The first continued to rely on New Zealand in foreign affairs, while Nauru ended its trusteeship ties with Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. New Zealand, a Commonwealth member with a self-conscious Maori Polynesian population surviving inside its borders, continued an active relationship with other Polynesian groupsthe Cook Islands, Niue, and Tokelau. Cook Islanders in 1965 and Niueans in 1974 became self-governing in free association with New Zealand, from which they required only support in certain aspects of external affairs and financial aid. In 1975 Australia, a Commonwealth country with territorial interests in Melanesia, relinquished its hold on Papua, which it had acquired from Great Britain in 1906, and its trusteeship in northeastern New Guinea, which the United Nations had granted in 1946. The fully independent nation of Papua New Guinea was thereby created. British Fiji and Tonga gained their independence from the United Kingdom in 1970. Other British colonies achieved freedom in subsequent yearsthe Solomon Islands in 1978; the Ellice Islands, renamed Tuvalu, also in 1978; the Gilbert Islands, which then became Kiribati, in 1979; and the New Hebrides, which Britain administered jointly with France until 1980, when the island group assumed nationhood as Vanuatu. France is represented in the Pacific by three overseas territoriesFrench Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. Each of these territories enjoys a degree of local autonomy and is represented in the French parliament by elected delegates. Popular movements toward greater self-government or independence are active in both French Polynesia and New Caledonia. The United States is interested primarily in the islands north of the Equator. Hawaii, formerly a territory, became the 50th U.S. state in 1959. Other U.S. territories are Guam and American (eastern) Samoa, both of which have been under civilian administration since 195051, after a half-century of naval rule. The United Nations Security Council established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) in 1947, covering the Northern Mariana Islands, the Caroline Islands, and the Marshall Islands, and granted administration to the United States as a strategic-area trusteeship. Micronesians in the TTPI have since negotiated in separate groups with the United States about their status. In 1975 the Northern Mariana Islands elected commonwealth status with the United States, and a formal constitution went into effect in 1978. Three other political entities emerged in the remaining islandsthe Republic of Palau (Belau); the Federated States of Micronesia, composed of Kosrae, Pohnpei (formerly Ponape), Chuuk (formerly Truk), and Yap; and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Constitutional governments were established in the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands in 1979, and Palau followed suit in 1981. Each of these then negotiated a Compact of Free Association with the United States, which in 1986 proclaimed that the trusteeship was terminated for the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In 1990 the UN Security Council dissolved the UN trusteeship for all three. Palau, the last territory in the TTPI, became independent in 1994 after formally approving the compact in a referendum. Two Pacific island territories are politically peripheral to contemporary Oceania. Western New Guinea, which was formerly a part of the Dutch East Indies, became a province of Indonesia in 1963 and was called Irian Barat until 1973, when it was renamed Irian Jaya. Easter Island has been a dependency of Chile since 1888, and development of its indigenous population is strongly oriented toward the interests of Chile.