SOLOMON ISLANDS

country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of a double chain of volcanic islands and coral atolls in Melanesia and occupies a total land area of 10,954 square miles (28,370 square kilometres). Buka and Bougainville islands, at the northwestern end of the Solomons chain, form the North Solomons province of Papua New Guinea. Honiara, on Guadalcanal Island, is Solomon Islands' capital and largest city. island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, extending southeastward from the Northern Solomons (Buka and Bougainville islands) of eastern Papua New Guinea. The capital is Honiara on Guadalcanal Island. Area 10,954 square miles (28,370 square km). Pop. (1992 est.) 339,000. Additional reading Patrick Vinton Kirch and D.E. Yen, Tikopia: The Prehistory and Ecology of a Polynesian Outlier (1982); Judith A. Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons: A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 18001978 (1987); David Hilliard, God's Gentlemen: A History of the Melanesian Mission, 18491942 (1978); Roger M. Keesing and Peter Corris, Lightning Meets the West Wind: The Malaita Massacre (1980); Hugh Laracy, Marists and Melanesians: A History of Catholic Missions in the Solomon Islands (1976); Hugh Laracy (ed.), Pacific Protest: The Maasina Rule Movement, Solomon Islands, 19441952 (1983); and Deborah Waite, Art of the Solomon Islands: From the Collection of the Barbier-Mller Museum (1983). For further study, see Sally Edridge (comp.), Solomon Islands Bibliography to 1980 (1985).