Oceania
Oceania is a
geographical, often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly
islands but usually including
Australia—in the
Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The exact scope of Oceania is defined variously, with interpretations including Australia,
New Zealand,
New Guinea, and various islands of the
Malay Archipelago.
Encyclopedia
Oceania is a
geographical, often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly
islands but usually including
Australia—in the
Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The exact scope of Oceania is defined variously, with interpretations including Australia,
New Zealand,
New Guinea, and various islands of the
Malay Archipelago.
Overview
The primary use of the term Oceania is to describe a macrogeographical region that lies between
Asia and the
Americas, with the
Australian continent as the major landmass and consisting of some 25,000 islands in the Pacific. The name
Oceania is used because, unlike the other regional groupings, it is the ocean and adjacent
seas rather than a
continent that link the lands together.
Extent
Originally coined by the French explorer
Dumont d'Urville in 1831, Oceania has been traditionally divided into
Micronesia,
Melanesia,
Polynesia, and
Australasia. As with any region, however, interpretations vary; increasingly, geographers and scientists divide Oceania into Near Oceania and Remote Oceania.
Most of Oceania consists of small island nations. Australia is the only continental country; by some definitions,
Indonesia has land borders with
Papua New Guinea,
East Timor, and
Malaysia.
Territories and regions
Name of territory,
with flag | Area
| Population
| Population density
| Capital |
|---|
| Australasia |
| Australia | 7,686,850 | 19,546,792 | 2.5 | Canberra |
| Christmas Island | 135 | 474 | 3.5 | The Settlement |
| 632 | 45.1 | West Island |
| New Zealand | 268,680 | 3,908,037 | 14.5 | Wellington |
| Norfolk Island | 35 | 1,866 | 53.3 | Kingston |
| Melanesia |
| Fiji | 18,270 | 856,346 | 46.9 | Suva |
| Indonesia | 499,852 | 4,211,532 | 8.4 | Jakarta |
| New Caledonia | 19,060 | 207,858 | 10.9 | Nouméa |
| Papua New Guinea | 462,840 | 5,172,033 | 11.2 | Port Moresby |
| Solomon Islands | 28,450 | 494,786 | 17.4 | Honiara |
| Vanuatu | 12,200 | 196,178 | 16.1 | Port Vila |
| Micronesia |
| Federated States of Micronesia | 702 | 135,869 | 193.5 | Palikir |
| Guam | 549 | 160,796 | 292.9 | Hagåtña |
| Kiribati | 811 | 96,335 | 118.8 | Bairiki |
| Marshall Islands | 181 | 73,630 | 406.8 | Majuro |
| Nauru | 21 | 12,329 | 587.1 | Yaren |
| Northern Mariana Islands | 477 | 77,311 | 162.1 | Saipan |
| Palau | 458 | 19,409 | 42.4 | Koror |
| Polynesia |
| American Samoa | 199 | 68,688 | 345.2 | Fagatogo, Utulei |
| Cook Islands | 240 | 20,811 | 86.7 | Avarua |
| French Polynesia | 4,167 | 257,847 | 61.9 | Papeete |
| Niue | 260 | 2,134 | 8.2 | Alofi |
| Pitcairn Islands | 5 | 47 | 1.0 | Adamstown |
| Samoa | 2,944 | 178,631 | 60.7 | Apia |
| Tokelau | 10 | 1,431 | 143.1 | — |
| Tonga | 748 | 106,137 | 141.9 | Nuku'alofa |
| Tuvalu | 26 | 11,146 | 428.7 | Vaiaku |
| Wallis and Futuna | 274 | 15,585 | 56.9 | Mata-Utu |
|
| Total | 9,008,458 | 35,834,670 | 4.0 |
Notes:Interpretative details and controversies
- Australia is sometimes not included in Oceania, although a term like Pacific islands would normally be used to describe Oceania without Australia. The term "Australasia" invariably includes Australia, and usually includes New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and parts of Oceania, but this term is sometimes controversial outside of Australia, as it may be seen as indicating a link with Asia - a completely separate continent, or too greatly emphasising Australia. "Austral" means "of, relating to, or coming from the south", and is the common root of both Australia and Australasia.
- Hawaii is generally included in Oceania, even though it is a part of the United States. Although the Hawaiian Islands are some distance from most of the islands of Oceania, they are still physically as well as culturally much closer to the rest of Oceania than to North America - and they are no further from the rest of Oceania than from United States territories in the North Pacific.
- The few U.S. territories in the North Pacific are uninhabited except by itinerant service personnel, and are normally grouped with the mainland United States in North America. They are generally not considered part of Oceania and, unlike Hawaii, they are closer to North America - most of them closer to North America than they are to Hawaii.
- Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the eastern Pacific Ocean, part of the territory of Chile, and is generally included in Oceania.
- New Zealand is within the Polynesian triangle and in this sense is part of Polynesia - the Maori of New Zealand constitute one of the major cultures of Polynesia.
- On very rare occasions the term may be stretched even further to include other Pacific island groups such as the Aleutian Islands.
Ecogeography
Oceania is one of eight terrestrial
ecozones, which constitute the major ecological regions of the planet. The Oceania ecozone includes all of Micronesia,
Fiji, and all of Polynesia except New Zealand. New Zealand, along with New Guinea and nearby islands, Australia, the
Solomon Islands,
Vanuatu, and
New Caledonia, constitute the separate
Australasia ecozone.
Sport
The
Oceania Football Confederation is one of six football confederations under the auspices of
FIFA, the international governing body of
football . The OFC is the only confederation without an automatic qualification to the
World Cup Finals. Currently the winner of the OFC must play-off against a
South American confederation side.
Oceania has only been represented at three World Cup Finals -
Australia in
1974,
New Zealand in
1982 and Australia in
2006. However, Australia is now no longer a member of the Oceania Football Confederation, having joined the
Asian Football Confederation in 2006.
See also
| style="background:#efefef;" align="center" colspan="2" |
...
External links
-
- - Information about the different countries of Oceania.
- - Japanese occupation currency
- - primary texts
