Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of
New Guinea in the southwestern
Pacific Ocean, named in honour of the German chancellor
Otto von Bismarck and belonging to
Papua New Guinea.
The
archipelago includes mostly
volcanic islands, the most important of which are:
*
Admiralty Islands
*
Duke of York Islands
* Mussau Islands
*
New Britain
*
New Hanover
*
New Ireland
* Vitu Islands
The first inhabitants of the Archipelago arrived at around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now Papua New Guinea.
Encyclopedia
The
Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of
New Guinea in the southwestern
Pacific Ocean, named in honour of the German chancellor
Otto von Bismarck and belonging to
Papua New Guinea.
The
archipelago includes mostly
volcanic islands, the most important of which are:
The first inhabitants of the Archipelago arrived at around 33,000 years ago after sailing from what is now Papua New Guinea. Later arrivals included the Lapita people.
The first European to find the islands was
Dutch explorer Willem Schouten in 1616, but they remained unsettled by Europeans until they became part of the
German protectorate of
German New Guinea in 1884.
Following the outbreak of
World War I, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force seized the islands in 1914 and
Australia later received a
League of Nations mandate for the islands. They remained under Australian control — interrupted only by
Japanese occupation during
World War II — until Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975.
