VANUATU

officially Republic of Vanuatu, Bislama Ripablik Blong Vanuatu, French Rpublique de Vanuatu, formerly New Hebrides, French Nouvelles-Hbrides republic consisting of a chain of 13 principal and many smaller islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 500 miles (800 km) west of Fiji and 1,100 miles (1,800 km) east of Australia. The islands extend from north to south for 400 miles (650 km) in an irregular Y shape and have a total land area of 4,707 square miles (12,190 square km). They include the Banks Islands (Vanua Lava, Gaua [Santa Maria], Mota, and Mota Lava) and Espiritu Santo, Malo, Aoba, Mawo, Pentecte (Pentecost), Malakula, Ambrym, pi, fat, Erromango, Tanna, and Anatom. The capital is Vila (also called Port-Vila) on fat, the main island. The population in 1990 was estimated at 147,000. officially Republic of Vanuatu, Bislama Ripablik Blong Vanuatu, French Rpublique de Vanuatu, formerly New Hebrides, French Nouvelles-Hbrides, country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of a chain of 13 principal and many smaller islands located 500 miles (800 kilometres) west of Fiji and 1,100 miles east of Australia. The islands extend from north to south for 400 miles in an irregular Y shape and have a total area of 4,707 square miles (12,190 square kilometres); they include Vanua Lava and Gaua (Santa Maria) in the Banks and Torres groups; and Espritu Santo, Aoba, Mawo, Pentecte (Pentecost), Malakula, Ambrym, pi, fat, Erromango, Tanna, and Anatom. Formerly the jointly administered Anglo-French condominium of the New Hebrides, Vanuatu achieved independence in 1980. The capital, largest city, and commercial centre is Vila, on fat Island. Additional reading The standard bibliography is Patrick O'Reilly, Bibliographie mthodique, analytique et critique des Nouvelles-Hbrides (1958); his Hbridais: rpertoire bio-bibliographique des Nouvelles-Hbrides (1957), provides short sketches of some of the persons (principally European) in Vanuatu's colonial past. See also Jos Garanger, Archaeology of the New Hebrides: Contribution to the Knowledge of the Central Islands (1982; originally published in French, 1972), an account of the excavation of Roy Mata's burial site; Michael Allen (ed.), Vanuatu: Politics, Economics, and Ritual in Island Melanesia (1981), comparative ethnographic studies; University of the South Pacific, Institute of Pacific Studies, Vanuatu (1980), with contributions by leading ni-Vanuatu figures; Jeremy MacClancy, To Kill a Bird with Two Stones: A Short History of Vanuatu (1981), a survey; Ron Adams, In the Land of Strangers: A Century of European Contact with Tanna, 17741874 (1984), an account of the first hundred years of European contact; and Jean Guiart, Un Sicle et demi de contacts culturels Tanna, Nouvelles-Hbrides (1956), on the origins and development of the John Frum cargo cult.