title: Oceania

text: American geographer Jesse Olney's 1845 book "A Practical System of Modern Geography" stated that it "comprises the numerous isles of the Pacific, lying south east of Asia." Olney divided up Oceania into three groups; Australasia (which included Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand), Malaysia and Polynesia (which included the combined islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia in his definition). Publication "Missionary Review of the World" claimed in 1895 that Oceania was divided up into five groups; Australasia, Malaysia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. It did not consider Hawaii to be part of Polynesia, due to its geographic isolation, commenting that Oceania also included, "isolated groups and islands, such as the Hawaiian and Galápagos." Rand McNally & Company, an American publisher of maps and atlases, claimed in 1892 that, "Oceania comprises the large island of Australia and the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean" and also that the islands of the Malay archipelago "should be grouped in with Asia." British linguist Robert Needham Cust argued in 1887 that the Malay archipelago should be excluded since it had participated in Asian civilization. Cust considered Oceania's four subregions to be Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. New Zealand were categorized by him as being in Polynesia; and the only country in his definition of Australasia was Australia. His definition of Polynesia included both Easter Island and Hawaii, which had not yet been annexed by either Chile or the United States.


title: Oceania

text: The "Journal of the Royal Statistical Society" stated in 1892 that Australia was a large island within Oceania rather than a small continent. It additionally commented, "it is certainly not necessary to consider the Hawaiian Islands and Australia as being in the same part of the world, it is however permissible to unite in one group all the islands which are scattered over the great ocean. It should be remarked that if we take the Malay archipelago away from Oceania, as do generally the German geographers, the insular world contained in the great ocean is cut in two, and the least populated of the five parts of the world is diminished in order to increase the number of inhabitants of the most densely populated continent." Regarding Australia and the Pacific, "Chambers's New Handy Volume American Encyclopædia" observed in 1885 that, "the whole region has sometimes been called Oceania, and sometimes Australasia—generally, however, in modern times, to the exclusion of the islands in the [Malay] archipelago, to which certain writers have given the name of Malaysia." It added there was controversy over the exact limits of Oceania, saying that, "scarcely any two geographers appear to be quite agreed upon the subject". British physician and ethnologist James Cowles Prichard wrote in 1847, "in the Northern Pacific alone its extent may be subject to some doubt. The Kuril and Aleutian Islands are not usually reckoned as belonging to it, because they are known to be inhabited by races of people who came immediately from the adjacent continents and are unconnected with those tribes of the human race who peopled the remote islands of this great ocean."


title: Oceania

text: The 1926 book "Modern World History, 1776-1926: A Survey of the Origins and Development of Contemporary Civilization", by Alexander Clarence Flick, considered Oceania to include all islands in the Pacific, and associated the term with the Malay archipelago, the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, the Aleutian Islands, Japan's Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and the Kuril Islands (currently administered by Russia, but which were then partly split between Japan and Russia). He also included in his definition Sakhalin, an island which is geologically part of the Japanese archipelago, but which has been administered by Russia since World War II. Australia and New Zealand were grouped together by Flick as Australasia, and included as being in the same area of the world as the islands of Oceania. Flick estimated this definition of Oceania had a population of 70,000,000, and commented that, "brown and yellow races constitute the vast majority" and that the minority of whites were mainly "owners and rulers". He added, "through trade relations, the work of missionaries and teachers, and political control, western civilization is slowly penetrating these out of the way places either directly, or indirectly through Europeanized powers like Japan." Hutton Webster's 1919 book "Medieval and Modern History " also considered Oceania to encompass all islands in the Pacific, stating that, "the term Oceania, or Oceanica, in its widest sense applies to all the Pacific Islands." Webster broke Oceania up into two subdivisions; the continental group, which included Australia, the Japanese archipelago, the Malay archipelago and Taiwan, and the oceanic group, which included New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. American lexicographer Joseph Emerson Worcester wrote in 1840 that Oceania is "a term applied to a vast number of islands which are widely dispersed in the Pacific Ocean [...] they are considered as forming a fifth grand division of the world." He believed that Oceania encompassed Australia, New Zealand, the Malay archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Japan and Taiwan were categorized by him as being part of Asia. In his 1846 book "A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer", author Thomas Baldwin wrote that Oceania includes Australia and Pacific islands which "are considered, from their proximity, not to belong to the continents of Asia or America." He defined Oceania as not including Japan or Taiwan, and noted that "its limits are somewhat indefinite."


title: Oceania

text: Charles Marion Tyler's 1885 book "The Island World of the Pacific Ocean" labelled the insular Pacific area as Oceanica rather than Oceania, with Tyler considering it to ethnographically encompass Australia, New Zealand, the Malay archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. However, Tyler included other Pacific islands in his book as well, such as the Aleutian Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, California's Channel Islands and Farallon Islands, Canada's Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Islands (now known as Haida Gwaii), Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, Mexico's Guadalupe Island, Revillagigedo Islands and Tres Marías Islands, and Peru's Chincha Islands. He additionally profiled the Anson archipelago, which during the 19th century was a designation for a widely scattered group of purported islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii. The Anson archipelago included phantom islands such as Ganges Island and Los Jardines which were proven to not exist, as well as real islands such as Marcus Island and Wake Island. Tyler described Australia as "the leviathan of the island groups of the world", and stated that the Juan Fernández Islands "will always retain a marked prominence in island histories, being at one time the home of that celebrated castaway Alexander Selkirk, whose life and adventures have been made so intensely interesting to youthful minds, and older ones too, for that matter, by Defoe in his wonderful book "Robinson Crusoe"."


title: Oceania

text: In a 1972 article for the "Music Educators Journal" titled "Musics of Oceania", author Raymond F. Kennedy wrote, "many meanings have been given to the word Oceania. The most inclusive–but not always the most useful–embraces about 25,000 land areas between Asia and the Americas. A more popular and practical definition excludes Indonesia, East Malaysia (Borneo), the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and other islands closely related to the Asian mainland, as well as the Aleutians and the small island groups situated near the Americas. Thus, Oceania most commonly refers to the land areas of the South and Central Pacific." Kennedy defined Oceania as including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The U.S. Government Publishing Office's "Area Handbook for Oceania" from 1971 states that Australia and New Zealand are the principal large sovereignties of the area. It further states, "In its broadest definition Oceania embraces all islands and island groups of the Pacific Ocean that lie between Asia and the two American continents. In popular usage, however, the designation has a more restricted application. The islands of the North Pacific, such as the Aleutians and the Kuriles, usually are excluded. In addition, the series of sovereign island nations fringing Asia (Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, East Malaysia, the Republic of Indonesia) are not ordinarily considered to be part of the area." In 1948, American military journal "Armed Forces Talk" broke the islands of the Pacific up into five major subdivisions; Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the non-tropical Islands. The Indonesia subdivision consisted of the islands of the Malay archipelago, while the non-tropical islands were categorized as being North Pacific islands such as Alaska's Kodiak archipelago, the Aleutian Islands, Japan, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Japan's Bonin and Ryukyu Islands are also considered to be subtropical islands, with the main Japanese archipelago being non-tropical. The journal associated the term Oceania with the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian subdivisions, but not with the Indonesian or non-tropical subdivisions. The "Pacific Islands Handbook" (1945), by Robert William Robson, stated that, "Pacific Islands generally are regarded as Pacific islands lying within the tropics. There are a considerable number of Pacific Islands outside the tropics. Most of them have little economic or political importance." He noted the political significance of the Aleutian Islands, which were invaded by the Japanese military in World War II, and categorized New Zealand's Antipodes Islands, Auckland Islands, Bounty Islands, Campbell Islands and Chatham Island as being non-tropical islands of the South Pacific, along with Australia's Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island (which are also considered to be subtropical islands). Other non-tropical areas below the equator, such as Macquarie Island and the southern portions of mainland Australia and New Zealand, were not included in this category.


title: Oceania

text: According to the 1998 book "Encyclopedia of Earth and Physical Sciences", Oceania includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and more than 10,000 islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. It notes that, "the term [has] also come under scrutiny by many geographers. Some experts insist that Oceania encompasses even the cold Aleutian Islands and the islands of Japan. Disagreement also exists over whether or not Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan should be included in Oceania." Taiwan and the Japanese and Malay archipelagos are often deemed as a geological extension of Asia, since they do not have oceanic geology, instead primarily being detached fragments of the Eurasian continent that were once physiologically connected. Certain Japanese islands off the main archipelago are not geologically associated with Asia. The book "The World and Its Peoples: Australia, New Zealand, Oceania" (1966) asserts that, "Japan, Taiwan, the Aleutian Islands, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia [and] the Pacific archipelagos bordering upon the Far East Asian mainland are excluded from Oceania", and that "all the islands lying between Australia and the Americas, including Australia, are part of Oceania." Furthermore, the book adds that Hawaii is still within Oceania, despite being politically integrated into the U.S., and that the Pacific Ocean "gives unity to the whole" since "all these varied lands emerge from or border upon the Pacific."


title: Oceania

text: The 1876 book "The Countries of the World: Volume 4", by British scientist and explorer Robert Brown, labelled the Malay archipelago as Northwestern Oceania, but Brown still noted that these islands belonged more to the Asian continent. They are now often referred to as Maritime Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines being founding members of the ASEAN regional organization for Southeast Asia in 1967. Brown also categorized Japan and Taiwan as being in the same part of the world as the islands of Oceania, and excluded them from "The Countries of the World: Volume 5", which focused on Asia. However, Brown did not explicitly associate Japan or Taiwan with the term Oceania. He divided Oceania into two subregions; Eastern Oceania, which included the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and Southwestern Oceania, which included Australia and New Zealand. The Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands and the Revillagigedo Islands were identified as the easternmost areas of Oceania in the book. Brown wrote, "they lie nearest the American continent of all oceanic islands, and though rarely associated with Polynesia, and never appearing to have been inhabited by any aboriginal races, are, in many ways, remarkable and interesting." Brown went on to add, "the small islands lying off the continent, like the Queen Charlotte's in the North Pacific, the Farallones off California, and the Chinchas off Peru are — to all intents and purposes, only detached bits of the adjoining shores. But in the case of the Galápagos, at least, this is different." He also claimed that they are "often cited as illustrating the peculiar relation of such islands to continents. Mr. Darwin has, for instance, adducted them as an illustration of the fact that such islands are inhabited by plants and animals closely allied to those of the nearest mainland, without actually being the same." The Juan Fernández Islands and the neighboring Desventuradas Islands are today seen as the easternmost extension of the Indo-West Pacific biogeographic region. The islands lie on the Nazca Plate with Easter Island and the Galápagos Islands, and have a significant south central Pacific component to their marine fauna. According to scientific journal "PLOS One", the Humboldt Current helps create a biogeographic barrier between the marine fauna of these islands and South America. Chile's government have occasionally considered them to be within Oceania along with Easter Island. Chile's government also categorize Easter Island, the Desventuradas Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being part of a region titled Insular Chile. They further include in this region Salas y Gómez, a small uninhabited island to the east of Easter Island. "PLOS One" describe Insular Chile as having "cultural and ecological connections to the broader insular Pacific."


title: Oceania

text: The International Union for Conservation of Nature stated in a 1986 report that they include Easter Island in their definition of Oceania "on the basis of its Polynesian and biogeographic affinities even though it is politically apart", further noting that other oceanic islands administered by Latin American countries had been included in definitions of Oceania. In 1987, "The Journal of Australasian Cave Research" described Oceania as being "the region from Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea, a province of New Guinea) in the west to Galápagos Islands (Equador) and Easter Island (Chile) in the east." In a 1980 report on venereal diseases in the South Pacific, the "British Journal of Venereal Diseases" categorized the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being in an eastern region of the South Pacific, along with areas such as Pitcairn Islands and French Polynesia, but noted that the Galápagos Islands were not a member of the South Pacific Commission, like other islands in the South Pacific. The South Pacific Commission is a developmental organization formed in 1947 and is currently known as the Pacific Community; its members include Australia and other Pacific Islands Forum members. In a 1947 article on the formation of the South Pacific Commission for the "Pacific Affairs" journal, author Roy E. James stated the organization's scope encompassed all non-self governing islands below the equator to the east of Papua New Guinea (which itself was included in the scope and then known as Dutch New Guinea). The Galápagos Islands and Chile's islands were defined by James as falling within the organization's geographical parameters. The 2007 book "Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West", by New Zealand Pacific scholar Ron Crocombe, defined the term "Pacific Islands" as being islands in the South Pacific Commission, and stated that such a definition "does not include Galápagos and other [oceanic] islands off the Pacific coast of the Americas; these were uninhabited when Europeans arrived, then integrated with a South American country and have almost no contact with other Pacific Islands." He adds, "Easter Island still participates in some Pacific Island affairs because its people are Polynesian."


title: Oceania

text: Thomas Sebeok's two volume 1971 book "Linguistics in Oceania" defines Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands, Costa Rica's Cocos Island and Colombia's Malpelo Island (all oceanic) as making up a Spanish language segment of Oceania. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island are the only landmasses located on the Cocos Plate, which is to the north of the Nazca Plate. The book observed that a native Polynesian language was still understood on Easter Island, unlike with the other islands, which were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans and mostly being used as prisons for convicts. Additionally, the book includes Taiwan and the entire Malay archipelago as part of Oceania. While not oceanic in nature, Taiwan and Malay archipelago countries like Indonesia and the Philippines share Austronesian linguistic origins with Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, hence their inclusion in the book. The book defined Oceania's major subregions as being Australia, Indonesia (which included all areas associated with the Malay archipelago), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. In 2010, Australian historian Bronwen Douglas claimed in "The Journal of Pacific History" that "a strong case could be made for extending Oceania to at least Taiwan, the homeland of the Austronesian language family whose speakers colonized significant parts of the region about 6,000 years ago." For political reasons, Taiwan was a member of the Oceania Football Confederation during the 1970s and 1980s, rather than the Asian Football Confederation.


title: Oceania

text: Ian Todd's 1974 book "Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama" also defines oceanic Latin American islands as making up a Spanish language segment of Oceania, including in this category the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, Guadalupe Island, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands and Salas y Gómez. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island were not explicitly referenced in the book, and Mexico's Tres Marías Islands were not included as they are continental in nature, unlike Guadalupe Island and the Revillagigedo Islands (both situated on the Pacific Plate). Todd defined the oceanic Bonin Islands as making up a Japanese language segment of Oceania, and excluded the Ryukyu Islands and the main Japanese archipelago, which are geologically associated with Asia. Todd further included the Aleutian Islands in his definition of Oceania. The island chain borders both the Pacific Plate as well as the North American Plate, and is geologically a partially submerged western extension of the Aleutian Range on the Alaskan mainland, that stretches for another 1,600 kilometers. He did not include the Kuril Islands, which similarly border both the Eurasian Plate and the Pacific Plate, nor did he include the neighboring Kodiak archipelago, which is situated on the North American Plate. "The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies" stated in 1996 that Oceania was defined as Australia and an ensemble of various Pacific Islands, "particularly those in the central and south Pacific [but] never those in the extreme north, for example the Aleutian chain." In the "Pacific Ocean Handbook" (1945), author Eliot Grinnell Mears wrote that "it is customary to exclude the Aleutians of the North Pacific", and that he included Australia and New Zealand in Oceania for "scientific reasons; Australia's fauna is largely continental in character, New Zealand's are clearly insular; and neither Commonwealth realm has close ties with Asia." He further added that, "the term "Australasia" is not relished by New Zealanders and this name is too often confused with "Australia"." In his 2002 book "Oceania: An Introduction to the Cultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders", Andrew Strathern excluded Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu Islands from his definition of Oceania, but noted that the islands and their indigenous inhabitants "show many parallels with Pacific island societies." In the 2006 book "Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds", American paleontologist David Steadman wrote, "no place on earth is as perplexing as the 25,000 islands that make Oceania." Steadman viewed Oceania as encompassing Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia (including Easter Island). He excluded from his definition Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand, and argued that other oceanic Latin American islands (such as the Galápagos Islands) were not part of Oceania, due to their closer biogeographical affinities with the Americas and lack of prehistoric indigenous populations. He wrote, "modern political boundaries in Oceania may not agree with those based on geology, biogeography or ethnicity." In his 2018 book "Regionalism in South Pacific", Chinese author Yu Changsen wrote that some "stress a narrow vision of the Pacific as those Pacific Islands excluding Australia and even sometimes New Zealand", adding that the term Oceania "promotes a broader concept that has room for Australia and New Zealand." The 1995 book "World Librarianship", by Bangladeshi author A.M. Abdul Huq, defined the term 'Pacific Rim' as being "a term used to describe the outer reaches of Oceania." He claimed that it "consists of Australia as well as the Asian island groups that comprise Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines", adding that "the Aleutian Islands and coastal island groups such as the Galápagos form the American boundary of the Pacific Rim."


title: Oceania

text: American marine geologist Anthony A.P. Koppers wrote in the 2009 book "Encyclopedia of Islands" that, "as a whole, the islands of the Pacific Region are referred to as Oceania. Inherent to their remoteness and because of the wide variety of island types, the Pacific Islands have developed unique social, biological and geological characteristics." Koppers considered Oceania to encompass all 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and included in this book the Aleutian Islands, the Galápagos Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Kuril Islands and continental islands off the coast of the Americas such as the Channel Islands, the Farallon Islands and Vancouver Island. In the 2013 book "The Environments of the Poor in Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific", Paul Bullen critiqued the definition of Oceania in "Encyclopedia of Islands", and wrote that since Koppers included areas such as Vancouver Island, it is "not clear what the referents of 'Pacific Region', 'Oceania' or 'Pacific Islands' are." He added that, "Asia, Europe and the Maritime Continent are not literal geographic continents. The 'Asia-Pacific region' would comprise two quasi-continents. 'The Pacific' would not refer to the Pacific Ocean and everything in it e.g., the Philippines." "The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names" (2017), by John Everett-Heath, states that Oceania is "a collective name for more than 10,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean" and that "it is generally accepted that Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the islands north of Japan (the Kurils and Aleutians) are excluded." In his 1993 book "A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands", Fijian and Tongan scholar Epeli Hauofa wrote that, "Pacific Ocean islands from Japan, through the Philippines and Indonesia, which are adjacent to the Asian mainland, do not have oceanic cultures, and are therefore not part of Oceania."


title: Oceania

text: In 1961, Japanese novelist and World War II navy veteran Toshio Shimao coined the term "Japonesia", which refers to the idea of mapping Japan as a Pacific archipelago rather than as an outlying region of Asia. He wrote that, "our Japan is often considered in terms of its separation from continental Asia, but there is another way of seeing it. Together with Polynesia, Micronesia and Indonesia, it is also one of a number of island groups in the Pacific Ocean. When we become more conscious of this facet of our Japan, its "Japonesian" aspect will be assured." In a 2003 article titled "Japonesia, Organic Geopolitics and the South", Barnaby Breaden wrote that, "the discourse of Japonesia began as a way of understanding Japanese cultural identity in terms of its links with the islands of the western Pacific, rather than in more conventional terms as an extension of continental Asia. During the 1970s, the concept came to be associated with political and geo-political discourse. In particular, Okinawan reversion to Japanese control." In 2014, American historian Ryan Tucker Jones argued in "The Journal of Pacific History" that "several themes prominent in the history of Oceania – such as humans' orientation towards the ocean, the complex ways in which European and Indigenous histories mixed in the colonial era, and the notion of vast, interconnected spaces – apply to North Pacific history as well", adding that "the history of the Russian Far East and Alaska could be written as Pacific history and integrated into histories of Oceania. Such an integration would provide numerous benefits for historians and activists in the North Pacific." He noted, "though Aleuts, Nivkhs and others are separated by several thousand miles and many degrees of average yearly temperature from Oceania, they have created and experienced histories that echo and have an impact on those further south."


title: Oceania

text: In his 2015 book "Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues", American historian Steven L. Danver claimed that, "the term Oceania, in its broadest sense, includes all insular regions between Asia and the Americas. While Japan and the Ryukyu Islands usually are considered part of Asia, and the Aleutians are viewed as a part of the Americas, in fact, these islands represent the northern part of Oceania. Likewise, the islands of the East Indies, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia belong to Oceania, as does Australia. However, Oceania most commonly is understood to refer to the islands in the center of the Pacific Ocean." Alain Chenevière and Roger Sabater's 1995 book "Pacific: the Boundless Ocean" similarly states that, "In its restricted sense, Oceania includes all land masses in the Pacific." However, the book added that, "the peripheral archipelagos in the Pacific like the Aleutians, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia do not form part of it, since they are attached both geologically, historically and ethnologically to [other] continents." The book defined Oceania as encompassing Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The 1978 book "The Changing Pacific", by Niel Gunson, stated that "the Japanese, or say the Aleuts are "Pacific peoples", but in practice [the] field of Pacific history has come to meant that of the islanders of Oceania. The other peoples are marginal to the Ocean, not embraced in it." British historian David Armitage wrote in his 2014 book "Pacific Histories: Ocean, Land, People" that, "New Zealand and Australia are sometimes considered part of the Pacific, sometimes not. Archipelagos which might otherwise appear to be "in" the Pacific are by convention usually excluded: Indonesia (excluding West Papua), the Philippines, the Aleutians or even Japan. And yet Timor Leste (or East Timor) is an observer of the Pacific Islands Forum." Armitage adds that, "various geographers carve up this part of the world differently, using a range of labels such as Oceania, Asia-Pacific, the Pacific-Basin, the South Pacific or South Seas (which commonly includes islands in the north) or the Pacific Islands. Of course, all the seas are connected, and there are no neat limits. But the struggle for putting the Pacific into discourse is partly decided by how it is defined." Australian historian Stuart Macintyre reflects in his 2009 book "A Concise History of Australia" that, "Australians commonly regard themselves, along with New Zealanders, as part of Oceania, and they have liked to think they enjoy a special relation with the most powerful of all English-speaking countries on the other side of that ocean", however, he added that "as the balance of regional power shifted, Australians increasingly claim they are part of Asia and regard their earlier presence in the Pacific as a romantic interlude in tropical islands far removed from the business hub of Asian tigers." In a 2021 poll by Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, the majority of respondents (62%) chose Australia as being part of Oceania. 38% also selected the Indo-Pacific, while 32% selected the West and 21% selected Asia.


title: Oceania

text: In "Reptiles and Amphibians of the Pacific Islands: A Comprehensive Guide" (2013), George R. Zug wrote that his preferred definition of Oceania emphasis islands with oceanic geology, stating that oceanic islands are, "islands with no past connections to a continental landmass" and that, "these boundaries encompass the Hawaiian and Bonin Islands in the north and Easter Island in the south, and the Palau Islands in the west to the Galápagos Islands in the east." Unlike the United Nations, the World Factbook defines the still-uninhabited Clipperton Island as being a discrete political entity, and they categorize it as part of North America, presumably due to its relative proximity (situated 1,200 kilometers off Mexico on the Pacific Plate). Clipperton is not politically associated with the Americas, as is the case with other oceanic islands nearing the Americas, having had almost no interaction with the continent throughout its history. From the early 20th century to 2007, the island was administratively part of French Polynesia, which itself was known as French Oceania up until 1957. In terms of marine fauna, Clipperton shares similarities with areas of the Pacific which are much farther removed from the Americas. Scottish author Robert Hope Moncrieff considered Clipperton to be the easternmost point of Oceania in 1907.


title: Oceania

text: Other uninhabited Pacific Ocean landmasses have been explicitly associated with Oceania, including the highly remote Baker Island and Wake Island (now administered by the U.S. military). This is due to their location in the center of the Pacific, their biogeography and their oceanic geology. Less isolated oceanic islands that were once uninhabited, such as the Bonin Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands, have since been sparsely populated by citizens of their political administrators. Archaeological evidence suggests that Micronesians may have lived on the Bonin Islands 2,000 years ago, but they were uninhabited at the time of European discovery in the 16th century.


title: Oceania

text: Like with these historically uninhabited areas, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Western New Guinea have also had diverging developments since European discovery, and they are still intertwined to the region not just through their geographical location or geology, but through past and present indigenous populations as well. The "East Asia" journal observes that, "Australia is often described as a "big brother" to island countries: part of the Pacific family by geography and history but set apart by wealth and national identity. With its Polynesian heritage, New Zealand has a greater claim to cultural connection with the Pacific. Australia and New Zealand are close allies, and consult closely on their engagement with Pacific island states. For the most part, they pursue a shared approach." Indigenous Australians are not considered to be Austronesians, although in 1940 Australian anthropologist Fred McCarthy described their culture as being "indissolubly bound up with that of Oceania." On the United States Census, they are categorized under the Pacific Islander American umbrella with Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians. Some theorize that Indigenous Australians are related to the Ainu people, who are the original inhabitants of Japan's Hokkaido and Russia's Kuril Islands. The indigenous inhabitants of Japan's Ryukyu Islands are also theorized to be related to Austronesians.


title: Oceania

text: Depending on the definition, New Zealand could be part of Polynesia, or part of Australasia with Australia. New Zealand was originally settled by the Polynesian Māoris, and has long maintained a political influence over the subregion. Through immigration and high Māori birth rates, New Zealand has attained the largest population of Polynesians in the world, while Australia has the third largest Polynesian population (consisting entirely of immigrants). Modern-day Indigenous Australians are loosely related to Melanesians, and Australia maintains political influence over Melanesia, which is mostly located on the same tectonic plate. Despite this, Australia is rarely seen as a part of the subregion. As with Australia and New Zealand, Melanesia's New Caledonia has a significant non-indigenous European population, numbering around 71,000. Conversely, New Caledonia has still had a similar history to the rest of Melanesia, and their French-speaking Europeans make up only 27% of the total population. As such, it is not also culturally considered a part of the predominantly English-speaking Australasia. Some cultural and political definitions of Australasia include most or all of Melanesia, due to its geographical proximity to Australia and New Zealand, but these are rare. Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia are more commonly grouped together as part of the Australasian biogeographical realm. The UN's name for the Australasia subregion is "Australia and New Zealand"; their definition includes New Zealand, but places Papua New Guinea in Melanesia. Papua New Guinea is geographically the closest country to Australia, and is often geologically associated with Australia as it was once physiologically connected. The UN's definition of this subregion also includes Australia's Indian Ocean external territories of Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. They lie within the bounds of the Australian Plate and are sometimes geographically associated with Southeast Asia due to their proximity to western Indonesia. Both were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans during the 17th century. Approximately half of the population on these islands are European Australian mainlanders (with smaller numbers being European New Zealanders), while the other half are immigrants from China or the nearby Malay archipelago. The UN further define the subregion as including Australia's Indian Ocean external territory Heard Island and McDonald Islands. These islands lie on the Antarctic Plate and are also thought of as being in Antarctica or no region at all, due to their extreme geographical isolation. The World Factbook define Heard Island and McDonald Islands as part of Antarctica, while placing Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands as the westernmost extent of Oceania.


title: Oceania

text: Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, was inhabited in prehistoric times by either Melanesians or Polynesians, and is geographically adjacent to the islands of Melanesia. The current inhabitants are mostly European Australians, and the UN categorize it as being in the Australasia subregion. The 1982 edition of the "South Pacific Handbook", by David Stanley, groups Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Hawaii together under an "Anglonesia" category. This is in spite of the geographical distance separating these areas from Hawaii, which technically lies in the North Pacific. The 1985 edition of the "South Pacific Handbook" also groups the Galápagos Islands as being in Polynesia, while noting that they are not culturally a part of the subregion. The islands are typically grouped with others in the southeastern Pacific that were never inhabited by Polynesians.


title: Oceania

text: The Bonin Islands are in the same biogeographical realm as the geographically adjacent Micronesia, and are often grouped in with the subregion because of this.


title: Oceania

text: Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands who migrated from Africa to Asia 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia 50,000 years ago. They are believed to be among the earliest human migrations out of Africa. Although they likely migrated to Australia through Southeast Asia they are not demonstrably related to any known Asian or Polynesian population. There is evidence of genetic and linguistic interchange between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian peoples of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but this may be the result of recent trade and intermarriage.


title: Oceania

text: They reached Tasmania 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age. It is believed that the first early human migration to Australia was achieved when this landmass formed part of the Sahul continent, connected to the island of New Guinea via a land bridge. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands, which are at the northernmost tip of Queensland near Papua New Guinea. The earliest definite human remains found in Australia are that of Mungo Man, which have been dated at 40,000 years old.


title: Oceania

text: The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people. Migrating from South-East Asia, they appear to have occupied these islands as far east as the main islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago, including Makira and possibly the smaller islands farther to the east.


title: Oceania

text: Particularly along the north coast of New Guinea and in the islands north and east of New Guinea, the Austronesian people, who had migrated into the area somewhat more than 3,000 years ago, came into contact with these pre-existing populations of Papuan-speaking peoples. In the late 20th century, some scholars theorized a long period of interaction, which resulted in many complex changes in genetics, languages, and culture among the peoples.


title: Oceania

text: Micronesia began to be settled several millennia ago, although there are competing theories about the origin and arrival of the first settlers. There are numerous difficulties with conducting archaeological excavations in the islands, due to their size, settlement patterns and storm damage. As a result, much evidence is based on linguistic analysis.


title: Oceania

text: The earliest archaeological traces of civilization have been found on the island of Saipan, dated to 1500 BCE or slightly before. The ancestors of the Micronesians settled there over 4,000 years ago. A decentralized chieftain-based system eventually evolved into a more centralized economic and religious culture centered on Yap and Pohnpei. The prehistories of many Micronesian islands such as Yap are not known very well.


title: Oceania

text: The first people of the Northern Mariana Islands navigated to the islands and discovered it at some period between 4000 BCE to 2000 BCE from South-East Asia. They became known as the Chamorros. Their language was named after them. The ancient Chamorro left a number of megalithic ruins, including Latte stone. The Refaluwasch or Carolinian people came to the Marianas in the 1800s from the Caroline Islands. Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BCE, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts.


title: Oceania

text: The Polynesian people are considered to be by linguistic, archaeological and human genetic ancestry a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people and tracing Polynesian languages places their prehistoric origins in the Malay Archipelago, and ultimately, in Taiwan. Between 3000 and 1000 BCE, speakers of Austronesian languages began spreading from Taiwan into Island South-East Asia, as tribes whose natives were thought to have arrived through South China 8,000 years ago to the edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia.


title: Oceania

text: In the archaeological record there are well-defined traces of this expansion which allow the path it took to be followed and dated with some certainty. It is thought that by roughly 1400 BCE, "Lapita Peoples", so-named after their pottery tradition, appeared in the Bismarck Archipelago of north-west Melanesia.


title: Oceania

text: Easter Islanders claimed that a chief Hotu Matu'a discovered the island in one or two large canoes with his wife and extended family. They are believed to have been Polynesian. Around 1200, Tahitian explorers discovered and began settling the area. This date range is based on glottochronological calculations and on three radiocarbon dates from charcoal that appears to have been produced during forest clearance activities. Moreover, a recent study which included radiocarbon dates from what is thought to be very early material suggests that the island was discovered and settled as recently as 1200.


title: Oceania

text: Oceania was first explored by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Portuguese navigators, between 1512 and 1526, reached the Maluku Islands (by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão in 1512), Timor, the Aru Islands (Martim A. Melo Coutinho), the Tanimbar Islands, some of the Caroline Islands (by Gomes de Sequeira in 1525), and west Papua New Guinea (by Jorge de Menezes in 1526). In 1519, a Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan sailed down the east coast of South America, found and sailed through the strait that bears his name and on 28 November 1520 entered the ocean which he named "Pacific". The three remaining ships, led by Magellan and his captains Duarte Barbosa and João Serrão, then sailed north and caught the trade winds which carried them across the Pacific to the Philippines where Magellan was killed. One surviving ship led by Juan Sebastián Elcano returned west across the Indian Ocean and the other went north in the hope of finding the westerlies and reaching Mexico. Unable to find the right winds, it was forced to return to the East Indies. The Magellan-Elcano expedition achieved the first circumnavigation of the world and reached the Philippines, the Mariana Islands, and other islands of Oceania.


title: Oceania

text: From 1527 to 1595 a number of other large Spanish expeditions crossed the Pacific Ocean, leading to the arrival in Marshall Islands and Palau in the North Pacific, as well as Tuvalu, the Marquesas Islands, the Solomon Islands archipelago, the Cook Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific.


title: Oceania

text: In the quest for Terra Australis, Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, sailed to Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, and sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres. Willem Janszoon, made the first completely documented European landing in Australia (1606), in Cape York Peninsula. Abel Tasman circumnavigated and landed on parts of the Australian continental coast and discovered Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), New Zealand in 1642, and Fiji. He was the first known European explorer to reach these islands.


title: Oceania

text: On 23 April 1770, British explorer James Cook made his first recorded direct observation of Aboriginal Australians at Brush Island near Bawley Point. On 29 April, Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as the Kurnell Peninsula. It is here that James Cook made first contact with an aboriginal tribe known as the Gweagal. His expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline of Australia.


title: Oceania

text: In 1789, the mutiny on the Bounty against William Bligh led to several of the mutineers escaping the Royal Navy and settling on Pitcairn Islands, which later became a British colony. Britain also established colonies in Australia in 1788, New Zealand in 1840 and Fiji in 1872, with much of Oceania becoming part of the British Empire. The Gilbert Islands (now known as Kiribati) and the Ellice Islands (now known as Tuvalu) came under Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century.


title: Oceania

text: French Catholic missionaries arrived on Tahiti in 1834; their expulsion in 1836 caused France to send a gunboat in 1838. In 1842, Tahiti and Tahuata were declared a French protectorate, to allow Catholic missionaries to work undisturbed. The capital of Papeetē was founded in 1843. On 24 September 1853, under orders from Napoleon III, Admiral Febvrier Despointes took formal possession of New Caledonia and Port-de-France (Nouméa) was founded 25 June 1854.


title: Oceania

text: The Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar landed in the Marshall Islands in 1529. They were named by Krusenstern, after English explorer John Marshall, who visited them together with Thomas Gilbert in 1788, en route from Botany Bay to Canton (two ships of the First Fleet). In 1905 the British government transferred some administrative responsibility over south-east New Guinea to Australia (which renamed the area "Territory of Papua"); and in 1906, transferred all remaining responsibility to Australia. The Marshall Islands were claimed by Spain in 1874. Germany established colonies in New Guinea in 1884, and Samoa in 1900. The United States also expanded into the Pacific, beginning with Baker Island and Howland Island in 1857, and with Hawaii becoming a U.S. territory in 1898. Disagreements between the US, Germany and UK over Samoa led to the Tripartite Convention of 1899.


title: Oceania

text: One of the first land offensives in Oceania was the Occupation of German Samoa in August 1914 by New Zealand forces. The campaign to take Samoa ended without bloodshed after over 1,000 New Zealanders landed on the German colony. Australian forces attacked German New Guinea in September 1914. A company of Australians and a British warship besieged the Germans and their colonial subjects, ending with a German surrender.


title: Oceania

text: The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of 7 December 1941. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II. The Japanese subsequently invaded New Guinea, Solomon Islands and other Pacific islands. The Japanese were turned back at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Kokoda Track campaign before they were finally defeated in 1945. Some of the most prominent Oceanic battlegrounds were the Battle of Bita Paka, the Solomon Islands campaign, the Air raids on Darwin, the Kokada Track, and the Borneo campaign. The United States fought the Battle of Guam from 21 July to 10 August 1944, to recapture the island from Japanese military occupation.


title: Oceania

text: Australia and New Zealand became dominions in the 20th century, adopting the Statute of Westminster Act in 1942 and 1947 respectively. In 1946, Polynesians were granted French citizenship and the islands' status was changed to an overseas territory; the islands' name was changed in 1957 to "Polynésie Française" (French Polynesia). Hawaii became a U.S. state in 1959. Fiji and Tonga became independent in 1970. On 1 May 1979, in recognition of the evolving political status of the Marshall Islands, the United States recognized the constitution of the Marshall Islands and the establishment of the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The South Pacific Forum was founded in 1971, which became the Pacific Islands Forum in 2000.


title: Oceania

text: Under a four subregion model, the islands of Oceania extend to New Guinea in the west, the Bonin Islands in the northwest, the Hawaiian Islands in the northeast, Easter Island and Sala y Gómez Island in the east, and Macquarie Island in the south. Excluded under most definitions of Oceania are the Pacific landmasses of Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, and the Japanese archipelago, which are all on the margins of Asia, as well as the Aleutian Islands and other Alaskan or Canadian islands. In its periphery, Oceania's islands would sprawl 28 degrees north to the Bonin Islands in the northern hemisphere, and 55 degrees south to Macquarie Island in the southern hemisphere.


title: Oceania

text: Oceanian islands are of four basic types: continental islands, high islands, coral reefs and uplifted coral platforms. High islands are of volcanic origin, and many contain active volcanoes. Among these are Bougainville, Hawaii, and Solomon Islands.


title: Oceania

text: Oceania is one of eight terrestrial biogeographic realms, which constitute the major ecological regions of the planet. Related to these concepts are Near Oceania, that part of western Island Melanesia which has been inhabited for tens of millennia, and Remote Oceania which is more recently settled. Although the majority of the Oceanian islands lie in the South Pacific, a few of them are not restricted to the Pacific Ocean – Kangaroo Island and Ashmore and Cartier Islands, for instance, are situated in the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean, respectively, and Tasmania's west coast faces the Southern Ocean.


title: Oceania

text: The coral reefs of the South Pacific are low-lying structures that have built up on basaltic lava flows under the ocean's surface. One of the most dramatic is the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia with chains of reef patches. A second island type formed of coral is the uplifted coral platform, which is usually slightly larger than the low coral islands. Examples include Banaba (formerly Ocean Island) and Makatea in the Tuamotu group of French Polynesia.


title: Oceania

text: Micronesia, which lies north of the equator and west of the International Date Line, includes the Mariana Islands in the northwest, the Caroline Islands in the center, the Marshall Islands to the west and the islands of Kiribati in the southeast.


title: Oceania

text: Melanesia, to the southwest, includes New Guinea, the world's second largest island after Greenland and by far the largest of the Pacific islands. The other main Melanesian groups from north to south are the Maluku Islands Archipelago, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands archipelago, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.


title: Oceania

text: Polynesia, stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, also encompasses Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and the Kermadec Islands to the west, the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Austral Islands in the center, and the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Mangareva Islands, and Easter Island to the east.


title: Oceania

text: Australasia comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. Along with India most of Australasia lies on the Indo-Australian Plate with the latter occupying the Southern area. It is flanked by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Southern Ocean to the south.


title: Oceania

text: The Pacific Plate, which makes up most of Oceania, is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate. The plate contains an interior hot spot forming the Hawaiian Islands. It is almost entirely oceanic crust. The oldest member disappearing by way of the plate tectonics cycle is early-Cretaceous (145 to 137 million years ago).


title: Oceania

text: Australia, being part of the Indo-Australian plate, is the lowest, flattest, and oldest landmass on Earth and it has had a relatively stable geological history. Geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Australia is situated in the middle of the tectonic plate, and therefore currently has no active volcanism.


title: Oceania

text: The geology of New Zealand is noted for its volcanic activity, earthquakes, and geothermal areas because of its position on the boundary of the Australian Plate and Pacific Plates. Much of the basement rock of New Zealand was once part of the super-continent of Gondwana, along with South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Antarctica and Australia. The rocks that now form the continent of Zealandia were nestled between Eastern Australia and Western Antarctica.


title: Oceania

text: The Australia-New Zealand continental fragment of Gondwana split from the rest of Gondwana in the late Cretaceous time (95–90 Ma). By 75 Ma, Zealandia was essentially separate from Australia and Antarctica, although only shallow seas might have separated Zealandia and Australia in the north. The Tasman Sea, and part of Zealandia then locked together with Australia to form the Australian Plate (40 Ma), and a new plate boundary was created between the Australian Plate and Pacific Plate.


title: Oceania

text: Most islands in the Pacific are high islands (volcanic islands), such as, Easter Island, American Samoa and Fiji, among others, having peaks up to 1300 m rising abruptly from the shore. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands were formed 7 to 30 million years ago, as shield volcanoes over the same volcanic hotspot that formed the Emperor Seamounts to the north and the Main Hawaiian Islands to the south. Hawaii's tallest mountain Mauna Kea is above mean sea level.


title: Oceania

text: The most diverse country of Oceania when it comes to the environment is Australia, with tropical rainforests in the north-east, mountain ranges in the south-east, south-west and east, and dry desert in the centre. Desert or semi-arid land commonly known as the outback makes up by far the largest portion of land. The coastal uplands and a belt of Brigalow grasslands lie between the coast and the mountains, while inland of the dividing range are large areas of grassland. The northernmost point of the east coast is the tropical-rainforested Cape York Peninsula.


title: Oceania

text: Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny. These adaptations are common in species from the large and well-known families Proteaceae ("Banksia"), Myrtaceae ("Eucalyptus" – gum trees), and Fabaceae ("Acacia" – wattle). The flora of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia is tropical dry forest, with tropical vegetation that includes palm trees, premna protrusa, psydrax odorata, gyrocarpus americanus, and derris trifoliata.


title: Oceania

text: New Zealand's landscape ranges from the fjord-like sounds of the southwest to the tropical beaches of the far north. South Island is dominated by the Southern Alps. There are 18 peaks of more than 3000 metres (9800 ft) in the South Island. All summits over 2,900 m are within the Southern Alps, a chain that forms the backbone of the South Island; the highest peak of which is Aoraki / Mount Cook, at . Earthquakes are common, though usually not severe, averaging 3,000 per year. There is a wide variety of native trees, adapted to all the various micro-climates in New Zealand.


title: Oceania

text: In Hawaii, one endemic plant, "Brighamia", now requires hand-pollination because its natural pollinator is presumed to be extinct. The two species of "Brighamia" – "B. rockii" and "B. insignis" – are represented in the wild by around 120 individual plants. To ensure these plants set seed, biologists rappel down cliffs to brush pollen onto their stigmas.


title: Oceania

text: The aptly named Pacific kingfisher is found in the Pacific Islands, as is the Red-vented bulbul, Polynesian starling, Brown goshawk, Pacific Swallow and the Cardinal myzomela, among others. Birds breeding on Pitcairn include the fairy tern, common noddy, and red-tailed tropicbird. The Pitcairn reed warbler, endemic to Pitcairn Island, was added to the endangered species list in 2008.


title: Oceania

text: Native to Hawaii is the Hawaiian crow, which has been extinct in the wild since 2002. The brown tree snake is native to northern and eastern coasts of Australia, Papua New Guinea, Guam and Solomon Islands. Native to Australia, New Guinea and proximate islands are birds of paradise, honeyeaters, Australasian treecreeper, Australasian robin, kingfishers, butcherbirds, and bowerbirds.


title: Oceania

text: A unique feature of Australia's fauna is the relative scarcity of native placental mammals, and dominance of the marsupials – a group of mammals that raise their young in a pouch, including the macropods, possums, and dasyuromorphs. The passerines of Australia, also known as songbirds or perching birds, include wrens, the magpie group, thornbills, corvids, pardalotes, lyrebirds. Predominant bird species in the country include the Australian magpie, Australian raven, the pied currawong, crested pigeons and the laughing kookaburra. The koala, emu, platypus and kangaroo are national animals of Australia, and the Tasmanian devil is also one of the well-known animals in the country. The goanna is a predatory lizard native to the Australian mainland.


title: Oceania

text: The birds of New Zealand evolved into an avifauna that included a large number of endemic species. As an island archipelago New Zealand accumulated bird diversity and when Captain James Cook arrived in the 1770s he noted that the bird song was deafening. The mix includes species with unusual biology such as the kākāpō which is the world's only flightless, nocturnal, lek-breeding parrot, but also many species that are similar to neighboring land areas. Some of the more well known and distinctive bird species in New Zealand are the kiwi, kea, takahē, kakapo, mohua, tūī, and the bellbird. The tuatara is a notable reptile endemic to New Zealand.


title: Oceania

text: The Pacific Islands are ruled by a tropical rainforest and tropical savanna climate. In the tropical and subtropical Pacific, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects weather conditions. In the tropical western Pacific, the monsoon and the related wet season during the summer months contrast with dry winds in the winter which blow over the ocean from the Asian landmass. November is the only month in which all the tropical cyclone basins are active.


title: Oceania

text: To the southwest of the region, in the Australian landmass, the climate is mostly desert or semi-arid, with the southern coastal corners having a temperate climate, such as oceanic and humid subtropical climate in the east coast and Mediterranean climate in the west. The northern parts of the country have a tropical climate. Snow falls frequently on the highlands near the east coast, in the states of Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and in the Australian Capital Territory.


title: Oceania

text: Most regions of New Zealand belong to the temperate zone with a maritime climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) characterised by four distinct seasons. Conditions vary from extremely wet on the West Coast of the South Island to almost semi-arid in Central Otago and subtropical in Northland. Snow falls in New Zealand's South Island and at higher altitudes in the North Island. It is extremely rare at sea level in the North Island.


title: Oceania

text: Hawaii, although being in the tropics, experiences many different climates, depending on latitude and its geography. The island of Hawaii for example hosts 4 (out of 5 in total) climate groups on a surface as small as according to the Köppen climate types: tropical, arid, temperate and polar. The Hawaiian Islands receive most of their precipitation during the winter months (October to April). A few islands in the northwest, such as Guam, are susceptible to typhoons in the wet season.


title: Oceania

text: The highest recorded temperature in Oceania occurred in Oodnadatta, South Australia (2 January 1960), where the temperature reached . The lowest temperature ever recorded in Oceania was , at Ranfurly in Otago in 1903, with a more recent temperature of recorded in 1995 in nearby Ophir. Pohnpei of the Senyavin Islands in Micronesia is the wettest settlement in Oceania, and one of the wettest places on earth, with annual recorded rainfall exceeding each year in certain mountainous locations. The Big Bog on the island of Maui is the wettest place, receiving an average each year.


title: Oceania

text: The linked map below shows the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the islands of Oceania and neighbouring areas, as a guide to the following table (there are few land boundaries that can be drawn on a map of the Pacific at this scale).


title: Oceania

text: The demographic table below shows the subregions and countries of geopolitical Oceania. The countries and territories in this table are categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations. The information shown follows sources in cross-referenced articles; where sources differ, provisos have been clearly indicated. These territories and regions are subject to various additional categorisations, depending on the source and purpose of each description.


title: Oceania

text: The predominant religion in Oceania is Christianity (73%). A 2011 survey found that 92% in Melanesia, 93% in Micronesia and 96% in Polynesia described themselves as Christians. Traditional religions are often animist, and prevalent among traditional tribes is the belief in spirits ("masalai" in Tok Pisin) representing natural forces. In the 2018 census, 37% of New Zealanders affiliated themselves with Christianity and 48% declared no religion. In the 2016 Census, 52% of the Australian population declared some variety of Christianity and 30% stated "no religion".


title: Oceania

text: In recent Australian and New Zealand censuses, large proportions of the population say they belong to "no religion" (which includes atheism, agnosticism, deism, secular humanism). In Tonga, everyday life is heavily influenced by Polynesian traditions and especially by the Christian faith. The Ahmadiyya mosque in Marshall Islands is the only mosque in Micronesia. Another one in Tuvalu belongs to the same sect. The Baháʼí House of Worship in Tiapapata, Samoa, is one of seven designations administered in the Baháʼí Faith.


title: Oceania

text: Other religions in the region include Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, which are prominent minority religions in Australia and New Zealand. Judaism, Sikhism and Jainism are also present. Sir Isaac Isaacs was the first Australian-born Governor General of Australia and was the first Jewish vice-regal representative in the British Empire. Prince Philip Movement is followed around Yaohnanen village on the southern island of Tanna in Vanuatu.


title: Oceania

text: Colonial languages include English in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and many other territories; French in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna; Japanese in the Bonin Islands; and Spanish on Easter Island and the Galápagos Islands. There are also Creoles formed from the interaction of Malay or the colonial languages with indigenous languages, such as Tok Pisin, Bislama, Chavacano, various Malay trade and creole languages, Hawaiian Pidgin, Norfuk, and Pitkern. Contact between Austronesian and Papuan resulted in several instances in mixed languages such as Maisin.


title: Oceania

text: Immigrants brought their own languages to the region, such as Mandarin, Hindi, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, Polish, German, Spanish, Russian, Korean, Cantonese and Greek, among many others, namely in Australia and New Zealand, or Fiji Hindi in Fiji.


title: Oceania

text: The most multicultural areas in Oceania, which have a high degree of immigration, are Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Since 1945, more than 7 million people have settled in Australia. From the late 1970s, there was a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries, making Australia a multicultural country.


title: Oceania

text: Sydney is the most multicultural city in Oceania, having more than 250 different languages spoken with about 40% of residents speaking a language other than English at home. Furthermore, 36 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, with top countries being Italy, Lebanon, Vietnam and Iraq, among others. Melbourne is also fairly multicultural, having the largest Greek-speaking population outside of Europe, and the second largest Asian population in Australia after Sydney.


title: Oceania

text: European migration to New Zealand provided a major influx following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Subsequent immigration has been chiefly from the British Isles, but also from continental Europe, the Pacific, The Americas and Asia. Auckland is home to over half (51.6 percent) of New Zealand's overseas born population, including 72 percent of the country's Pacific Island-born population, 64 percent of its Asian-born population, and 56 percent of its Middle Eastern and African born population.


title: Oceania

text: Hawaii is a majority-minority state. Chinese workers on Western trading ships settled in Hawaii starting in 1789. In 1820, the first American missionaries arrived to preach Christianity and teach the Hawaiians Western ways. , a large proportion of Hawaii's population have Asian ancestry – especially Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. Many are descendants of immigrants brought to work on the sugarcane plantations in the mid-to-late 19th century. Almost 13,000 Portuguese immigrants had arrived by 1899; they also worked on the sugarcane plantations. Puerto Rican immigration to Hawaii began in 1899 when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes, causing a worldwide shortage of sugar and a huge demand for sugar from Hawaii.


title: Oceania

text: Between 2001 and 2007 Australia's Pacific Solution policy transferred asylum seekers to several Pacific nations, including the Nauru detention centre. Australia, New Zealand and other nations took part in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands between 2003 and 2017 after a request for aid.


title: Oceania

text: Archaeology, linguistics, and existing genetic studies indicate that Oceania was settled by two major waves of migration. The first migration of Australo-Melanesians took place 40 to 80 thousand years ago, and these migrants, Papuans, colonised much of Near Oceania. Approximately 3.5 thousand years ago, a second expansion of Austronesian speakers arrived in Near Oceania, and the descendants of these people spread to the far corners of the Pacific, colonising Remote Oceania.


title: Oceania

text: Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) studies quantify the magnitude of the Austronesian expansion and demonstrate the homogenising effect of this expansion. With regards to Papuan influence, autochthonous haplogroups support the hypothesis of a long history in Near Oceania, with some lineages suggesting a time depth of 60 thousand years. Santa Cruz, a population located in Remote Oceania, is an anomaly with extreme frequencies of autochthonous haplogroups of Near Oceanian origin.


title: Oceania

text: Large areas of New Guinea are unexplored by scientists and anthropologists due to extensive forestation and mountainous terrain. Known indigenous tribes in Papua New Guinea have very little contact with local authorities aside from the authorities knowing who they are. Many remain preliterate and, at the national or international level, the names of tribes and information about them is extremely hard to obtain. The Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua on the island of New Guinea are home to an estimated 44 uncontacted tribal groups.


title: Oceania

text: Australia and New Zealand are the only highly developed independent nations in the region, although the economy of Australia is by far the largest and most dominant economy in the region and one of the largest in the world. New Caledonia, Hawaii, and French Polynesia are highly developed too but are not sovereign states. Australia's per-capita GDP is higher than that of the UK, Canada, Germany, and France in terms of purchasing power parity. New Zealand is also one of the most globalised economies and depends greatly on international trade.


title: Oceania

text: The Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney is the largest stock exchange in Australia and in the South Pacific. In 2012, Australia was the 12th largest national economy by nominal GDP and the 19th-largest measured by PPP-adjusted GDP.


title: Oceania

text: Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranks Sydney tenth in the world in terms of quality of living, making it one of the most livable cities. It is classified as an Alpha+ World City by GaWC. Melbourne also ranked highly in the world's most liveable city list, and is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region.


title: Oceania

text: The majority of people living in Australia work in health care, retail and education sectors. Australia boasts the largest amount of manufacturing in the region, producing cars, electrical equipment, machinery and clothes.


title: Oceania

text: New Zealand's economy is the 53rd-largest in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP) and 68th-largest in the world measured by purchasing power parity (PPP). A major economic and cultural powerhouse of the Southern Hemisphere, Auckland is ranked as a Beta+ world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Auckland and Wellington are frequently ranked among the world's most liveable cities, with Auckland being ranked first in the world according to the Global Liveability Ranking.


title: Oceania

text: New Zealand has a large GDP for its population of 5.2 million, and sources of revenue are spread throughout the large island nation. The country has one of the most globalised economies and depends greatly on international trade – mainly with Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. New Zealand's 1983 Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia means that the economy aligns closely with that of Australia. In 2005, the World Bank praised New Zealand as the most business-friendly country in the world. The economy diversified and by 2008, tourism had become the single biggest generator of foreign exchange. The New Zealand dollar is the 10th-most traded currency in the world.


title: Oceania

text: The overwhelming majority of people living in the Pacific islands work in the service industry which includes tourism, education and financial services. Oceania's largest export markets include Japan, China, the United States and South Korea. The smallest Pacific nations rely on trade with Australia, New Zealand and the United States for exporting goods and for accessing other products. Australia and New Zealand's trading arrangements are known as Closer Economic Relations. Australia and New Zealand, along with other countries, are members of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asia Summit (EAS), which may become trade blocs in the future particularly EAS.


title: Oceania

text: The main produce from the Pacific is copra or coconut, but timber, beef, palm oil, cocoa, sugar, and ginger are also commonly grown across the tropics of the Pacific. Fishing provides a major industry for many of the smaller nations in the Pacific, although many fishing areas are exploited by other larger countries, namely Japan. Natural Resources, such as lead, zinc, nickel, and gold, are mined in Australia and Solomon Islands. Oceania's largest export markets include Japan, China, the United States, India, South Korea and the European Union.


title: Oceania

text: Endowed with forest, mineral, and fish resources, Fiji is one of the most developed of the Pacific island economies, though it remains a developing country with a large subsistence agriculture sector. Agriculture accounts for 18% of gross domestic product, although it employed some 70% of the workforce as of 2001. Sugar exports and the growing tourist industry are the major sources of foreign exchange. Sugar cane processing makes up one-third of industrial activity. Coconuts, ginger, and copra are also significant.


title: Oceania

text: The history of Hawaii's economy can be traced through a succession of dominant industries; sandalwood, whaling, sugarcane, pineapple, the military, tourism and education. Hawaiian exports include food and clothing. These industries play a small role in the Hawaiian economy, due to the shipping distance to viable markets, such as the West Coast of the contiguous U.S. The state's food exports include coffee, macadamia nuts, pineapple, livestock, sugarcane and honey. , Honolulu was ranked high on world livability rankings, and was also ranked as the 2nd safest city in the U.S.


title: Oceania

text: Tourists mostly come from Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Fiji currently attracts almost half a million tourists each year, more than a quarter of whom come from Australia. This has contributed $1 billion or more to Fiji's economy since 1995, but the Government of Fiji likely underestimates these figures due to the invisible economy inside the tourism industry.


title: Oceania

text: Vanuatu is widely recognised as one of the premier vacation destinations for scuba divers wishing to explore coral reefs of the South Pacific region. Tourism has been promoted, in part, by Vanuatu being the site of several reality-TV shows. The ninth season of the reality TV series "Survivor" was filmed on Vanuatu, entitled " – Islands of Fire". Two years later, Australia's "Celebrity Survivor" was filmed at the same location used by the US version.


title: Oceania

text: Tourism in Australia is an important component of the Australian economy. In the financial year 2014/15, tourism represented 3% of Australia's GDP contributing A$47.5 billion to the national economy. In 2015, there were 7.4 million visitor arrivals. Popular Australian destinations include the Sydney Harbour (Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Royal Botanic Garden, etc.), Gold Coast (theme parks such as Warner Bros. Movie World, Dreamworld and Sea World), Walls of Jerusalem National Park and Mount Field National Park in Tasmania, Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, The Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Australian outback.


title: Oceania

text: Tourism in New Zealand contributes NZ$7.3 billion (or 4%) of the country's GDP in 2013, as well as directly supporting 110,800 full-time equivalent jobs (nearly 6% of New Zealand's workforce). International tourist spending accounted for 16% of New Zealand's export earnings (nearly NZ$10 billion). International and domestic tourism contributes, in total, NZ$24 billion to New Zealand's economy every year. Tourism New Zealand, the country's official tourism agency, is actively promoting the country as a destination worldwide. Milford Sound in South Island is acclaimed as New Zealand's most famous tourist destination.


title: Oceania

text: In 2003 alone, according to state government data, there were over 6.4 million visitors to the Hawaiian Islands with expenditures of over $10.6 billion. Due to the mild year-round weather, tourist travel is popular throughout the year. In 2011, Hawaii saw increasing arrivals and share of foreign tourists from Canada, Australia, and China increasing 13%, 24% and 21% respectively from 2010.


title: Oceania

text: Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy with Charles III at its apex as the King of Australia, a role that is distinct from his position as monarch of the other Commonwealth realms. The King is represented in Australia by the Governor-General at the federal level and by the Governors at the state level, who by convention act on the advice of his ministers. There are two major political groups that usually form government, federally and in the states: the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party and its minor partner, the National Party. Within Australian political culture, the Coalition is considered centre-right and the Labor Party is considered centre-left. The Australian Defence Force is by far the largest military force in Oceania.


title: Oceania

text: New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy, although its constitution is not codified. Charles III is the King of New Zealand and the head of state. The King is represented by the Governor-General, whom he appoints on the advice of the Prime Minister. The New Zealand Parliament holds legislative power and consists of the King and the House of Representatives. A parliamentary general election must be called no later than three years after the previous election. New Zealand is identified as one of the world's most stable and well-governed states, with high government transparency and among the lowest perceived levels of corruption.


title: Oceania

text: In Samoan politics, the Prime Minister of Samoa is the head of government. The 1960 constitution, which formally came into force with independence from New Zealand in 1962, builds on the British pattern of parliamentary democracy, modified to take account of Samoan customs. The national government ("malo") generally controls the legislative assembly. Politics of Tonga takes place in a framework of a constitutional monarchy, whereby the King of Tonga is the Head of State.


title: Oceania

text: Fiji has a multiparty system with the Prime Minister of Fiji as head of government. The executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Parliament of Fiji. Fiji's Head of State is the President. He is elected by Parliament of Fiji after nomination by the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, for a three-year term.


title: Oceania

text: In the politics of Papua New Guinea the Prime Minister is the head of government, and the head of state is the monarch of the United Kingdom, represented by a Governor-General. In Kiribati, a Parliamentary regime, the President of Kiribati is the head of state and government, and of a multi-party system.


title: Oceania

text: New Caledonia remains an integral part of the French Republic. Inhabitants of New Caledonia are French citizens and carry French passports. They take part in the legislative and presidential French elections. New Caledonia sends two representatives to the French National Assembly and two senators to the French Senate.


title: Oceania

text: Hawaii is dominated by the Democratic Party. As codified in the Hawaiian Constitution, there are three branches of government: executive, legislative and judicial. The governor is elected statewide. The lieutenant governor acts as the Secretary of State. The governor and lieutenant governor oversee twenty agencies and departments from offices in the State Capitol.


title: Oceania

text: Since 1788, the primary influence behind Australian culture has been Anglo-Celtic Western culture, with some Indigenous influences. The divergence and evolution that has occurred in the ensuing centuries has resulted in a distinctive Australian culture. Since the mid-20th century, American popular culture has strongly influenced Australia, particularly through television and cinema. Other cultural influences come from neighbouring Asian countries, and through large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking nations. "The Story of the Kelly Gang" (1906), the world's first feature length film, spurred a boom in Australian cinema during the silent film era. The Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne are the oldest and largest museums in Oceania. The city's New Year's Eve celebrations are the largest in Oceania.


title: Oceania

text: Australia is also known for its cafe and coffee culture in urban centres. Australia and New Zealand were responsible for the flat white coffee. Most Indigenous Australian tribal groups subsisted on a simple hunter-gatherer diet of native fauna and flora, otherwise called bush tucker. The first settlers introduced British food to the continent, much of which is now considered typical Australian food, such as the Sunday roast. Multicultural immigration transformed Australian cuisine; post-World War II European migrants, particularly from the Mediterranean, helped to build a thriving Australian coffee culture, and the influence of Asian cultures has led to Australian variants of their staple foods, such as the Chinese-inspired dim sim and Chiko Roll.


title: Oceania

text: The music of Hawaii includes traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaii's musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the state's small size. Styles such as slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a major contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. The Hawaiian religion is polytheistic and animistic, with a belief in many deities and spirits, including the belief that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as animals, the waves, and the sky.


title: Oceania

text: The cuisine of Hawaii is a fusion of many foods brought by immigrants to the Hawaiian Islands, including the earliest Polynesians and native Hawaiians, and American, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Polynesian, and Portuguese origins. Native Hawaiian musician and Hawaiian sovereignty activist Israel Kamakawiwoole, famous for his medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World", was named "The Voice of Hawaii" by NPR in 2010 in its 50 great voices series.


title: Oceania

text: New Zealand as a culture is a Western culture, which is influenced by the cultural input of the indigenous Māori and the various waves of multi-ethnic migration which followed the British colonisation of New Zealand. The Māori people constitute one of the major cultures of Polynesia. The country has been broadened by globalisation and immigration specifically from Oceania, Europe, and Asia. New Zealand marks two national days of remembrance, Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day, and also celebrates many holidays such as the Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, and Christmas Day, as well as public anniversaries of the founding dates of most regions. The New Zealand recording industry began to develop from 1940 onwards and many New Zealand musicians have obtained success in Britain and the United States. Some artists release Māori language songs and the Māori tradition-based art of "kapa haka" (song and dance) has made a resurgence. The country's diverse scenery and compact size, plus government incentives, have encouraged some producers to film big budget movies in New Zealand, including "Avatar", "The Lord of the Rings", "The Hobbit", "The Chronicles of Narnia", "King Kong" and "The Last Samurai".


title: Oceania

text: The national cuisine has been described as Pacific Rim, incorporating the native Māori cuisine and diverse culinary traditions introduced by settlers and immigrants from Europe, Polynesia and Asia. New Zealand yields produce from land and sea – most crops and livestock, such as maize, potatoes and pigs, were gradually introduced by the early European settlers. Distinctive ingredients or dishes include lamb; salmon; koura (crayfish); whitebait; shellfish including dredge oysters, paua, mussels, scallops, pipi and tuatua; kumara (sweet potato); kiwifruit; tamarillo; and pavlova (considered a national dish).


title: Oceania

text: The fa'a Samoa, or traditional Samoan way, remains a strong force in Samoan life and politics. Despite centuries of European influence, Samoa maintains its historical customs, social and political systems, and language. Cultural customs such as the Samoa 'ava ceremony are significant and solemn rituals at important occasions including the bestowal of "matai" chiefly titles. Items of great cultural value include the finely woven "'ie toga".


title: Oceania

text: The Samoan word for dance is "siva", which consists of unique gentle movements of the body in time to music and which tell a story. Samoan male dances can be more snappy. The "sasa" is also a traditional dance where rows of dancers perform rapid synchronised movements in time to the rhythm of wooden drums "(pate)" or rolled mats. Another dance performed by males is called the "fa'ataupati" or the slap dance, creating rhythmic sounds by slapping different parts of the body. As with other Polynesian cultures (Hawaiian, Tahitian and Māori) with significant and unique tattoos, Samoans have two gender specific and culturally significant tattoos.


title: Oceania

text: The artistic creations of native Oceanians varies greatly throughout the cultures and regions. The subject matter typically carries themes of fertility or the supernatural.


title: Oceania

text: Petroglyphs, tattooing, painting, wood carving, stone carving, and textile work are other common art forms. Art of Oceania properly encompasses the artistic traditions of the people indigenous to Australia and the Pacific Islands. These early peoples lacked a writing system, and made works on perishable materials, so few records of them exist from this time.


title: Oceania

text: Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest unbroken tradition of art in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. These rock paintings served several functions. Some were used in magic, others to increase animal populations for hunting, while some were simply for amusement. Sculpture in Oceania first appears on New Guinea as a series of stone figures found throughout the island, but mostly in mountainous highlands. Establishing a chronological timeframe for these pieces in most cases is difficult, but one has been dated to 1500 BCE.


title: Oceania

text: By 1500 BCE the Lapita culture, descendants of the second wave, would begin to expand and spread into the more remote islands. At around the same time, art began to appear in New Guinea, including the earliest examples of sculpture in Oceania. Beginning 1100 CE, the people of Easter Island would begin construction of nearly 900 moai (large stone statues). At 1200 CE, the people of Pohnpei, a Micronesian island, would embark on another megalithic construction, building Nan Madol, a city of artificial islands and a system of canals. Hawaiian art includes wood carvings, feather work, petroglyphs, bark cloth (called kapa in Hawaiian and tapa elsewhere in the Pacific), and tattoos. Native Hawaiians had neither metal nor woven cloth.


title: Oceania

text: Rugby union is one of the region's most prominent sports, and is the national sport of New Zealand, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. The most popular overall sport in Australia is cricket, with their national team having won the Cricket World Cup a record five times. The most popular sport among Australian women is netball, while Australian rules football garners the highest spectatorship numbers and television ratings. Rugby union is the most popular sport among New Zealanders, and they are tied with South Africa for the most Rugby World Cup titles, having won the tournament three times. Australia's team the Wallabies have also managed to win the World Cup twice, despite Rugby union being less popular among Australians. In Papua New Guinea, the most popular sport is Rugby league. Fiji's sevens team is one of the most successful in the world, as is New Zealand's.


title: Oceania

text: Australian rules football is the national sport in Nauru. It has a large following in Papua New Guinea, where it is the second most popular sport after Rugby League. Additionally, it attracts significant attention across New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The highest level of the sport is the Australian Football League (AFL), which was the fourth best attended sporting league in the world during the 2010s.


title: Oceania

text: Vanuatu is the only country in Oceania to call association football its national sport. However, it is also the most popular sport in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, and has a significant (and growing) popularity in Australia. In 2006 Australia left the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and their men's team the Socceroos have qualified for every subsequent FIFA World Cup as an Asian entrant. The sole Micronesian country with membership in the OFC is Kiribati, although they are not recognized by FIFA like the other OFC members. Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau all have no presence, primarily due to lack of infrastructure and logistical difficulties related to Micronesia's remoteness. Like Australia, the Micronesian dependent territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands currently compete in the AFC instead of the OFC. The OFC was dominated by Australia for many years, and became known for one-sided results. These included a 31–0 defeat of American Samoa by Australia in 2001, which remains the biggest international victory in the history of the sport. It broke the previous record set two days earlier when Australia defeated Tonga 22–0.


title: Oceania

text: Australians view sport as an important part of their cultural identity, and the country performs well on the international stage, despite having a relatively small population. They have hosted two Summer Olympics: Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000, and the city of Brisbane is also set to host the 2032 edition. Australia (and New Zealand) were among the small handful of non-communist countries who decided to participate at Moscow 1980. Additionally, Australia has hosted five editions of the Commonwealth Games (Sydney 1938, Perth 1962, Brisbane 1982, Melbourne 2006, Gold Coast 2018). Meanwhile, New Zealand has hosted the Commonwealth Games three times: Auckland 1950, Christchurch 1974 and Auckland 1990. The Pacific Games (formerly known as the South Pacific Games) is a multi-sport event, much like the Olympics on a much smaller scale, with participation exclusively from countries around the Pacific. It is held every four years and began in 1963.


title: Oceania

text: Melbourne hosts the Australian Open every year, considered one of the four major Grand Slam tournaments in tennis. It was held for the first time in 1905.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: Otto Adolf Eichmann ( , ; 19 March 1906 – 1 June 1962) was a German-Austrian SS-"Obersturmbannführer" and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust – the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in Nazi terminology. He was tasked by SS-"Obergruppenführer" Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of millions of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. Eichmann was captured by Mossad agents in Argentina on 11 May 1960 and subsequently found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicised trial in Jerusalem, following which he was executed by hanging in 1962.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: After doing poorly in school, Eichmann briefly worked for his father's mining company in Austria, where the family had moved in 1914. He worked as a travelling oil salesman beginning in 1927, and joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in 1932. He returned to Germany in 1933, where he joined the "Sicherheitsdienst" (SD, "Security Service"); there he was appointed head of the department responsible for Jewish affairs – especially emigration, which the Nazis encouraged through violence and economic pressure. After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Eichmann and his staff arranged for Jews to be concentrated in ghettos in major cities with the expectation that they would be transported either farther east or overseas. He also drew up plans for a Jewish reservation, first at Nisko in southeast Poland and later in Madagascar, but neither of these plans was carried out.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: The Nazis began the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, and their Jewish policy changed from emigration to extermination. To coordinate planning for the genocide, Reinhard Heydrich, who was Eichmann's superior, hosted the regime's administrative leaders at the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. Eichmann collected information for him, attended the conference, and prepared the minutes. Eichmann and his staff became responsible for Jewish deportations to extermination camps, where the victims were gassed. Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944, and Eichmann oversaw the deportation of much of the Jewish population. Most of the victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, where about 75 per cent were murdered upon arrival. By the time the transports were stopped in July 1944, 437,000 of Hungary's 725,000 Jews had been killed. Dieter Wisliceny testified at Nuremberg that Eichmann told him he would "leap laughing into the grave because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction."


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: After Germany's defeat in 1945, Eichmann was captured by US forces, but escaped from a detention camp and moved around Germany to avoid re-capture. He ended up in a small village in Lower Saxony, where he lived until 1950, when he moved to Argentina using false papers he obtained with help from an organisation directed by Catholic bishop Alois Hudal. Information collected by Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, confirmed his location in 1960. A team of Mossad and Shin Bet agents captured Eichmann and brought him to Israel to stand trial on 15 criminal charges, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people. During the trial, he did not deny the Holocaust or his role in organising it, but said he was simply following orders in a totalitarian "Führerprinzip" system. He was found guilty on all of the charges, and was executed by hanging on 1 June 1962. The trial was widely followed in the media and was later the subject of several books, including Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem", in which Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe Eichmann.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: Otto Adolf Eichmann, the eldest of five children, was born in 1906 to a Calvinist Protestant family in Solingen, Germany. His parents were Adolf Karl Eichmann, a bookkeeper, and Maria ("née" Schefferling), a housewife. The elder Adolf moved to Linz, Austria, in 1913 to take a position as commercial manager for the Linz Tramway and Electrical Company, and the rest of the family followed a year later. After the death of Maria in 1916, Eichmann's father married Maria Zawrzel, a devout Protestant with two sons.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: Eichmann attended the Kaiser Franz Joseph "Staatsoberrealschule" (state secondary school) in Linz, the same high school Adolf Hitler had attended 17 years before. He played the violin and participated in sports and clubs, including a "Wandervogel" woodcraft and scouting group that included some older boys who were members of various right-wing militias. His poor school performance resulted in his father's withdrawing him from the "Realschule" and enrolling him in the "Höhere Bundeslehranstalt für Elektrotechnik, Maschinenbau und Hochbau" vocational college. He left without attaining a degree and joined his father's new enterprise, the Untersberg Mining Company, where he worked for several months. From 1925 to 1927 he worked as a sales clerk for the "Oberösterreichische Elektrobau AG" radio company. Next, between 1927 and early 1933, Eichmann worked in Upper Austria and Salzburg as district agent for the Vacuum Oil Company AG.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: During this time, he joined the "Jungfrontkämpfervereinigung", the youth section of Hermann Hiltl's right-wing veterans movement, and began reading newspapers published by the Nazi Party. The party platform included the dissolution of the Weimar Republic in Germany, rejection of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. They promised a strong central government, increased "Lebensraum" (living space) for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: On the advice of family friend and local SS leader Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Eichmann joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party on 1 April 1932, member number 889,895. His membership in the SS was confirmed seven months later (SS member number 45,326). His regiment was "SS-Standarte" 37, responsible for guarding the party headquarters in Linz and protecting party speakers at rallies, which would often become violent. Eichmann pursued party activities in Linz on weekends while continuing in his position at Vacuum Oil in Salzburg.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: A few months after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in January 1933, Eichmann lost his job due to staffing cutbacks at Vacuum Oil. The Nazi Party was banned in Austria around the same time. These events were factors in Eichmann's decision to return to Germany.


title: Adolf Eichmann

text: Like many other Nazis fleeing Austria in the spring of 1933, Eichmann left for Passau, where he joined Andreas Bolek at his headquarters. After he attended a training programme at the SS depot in Klosterlechfeld in August, Eichmann returned to the Passau border in September, where he was assigned to lead an eight-man SS liaison team to guide Austrian National Socialists into Germany and smuggle propaganda material from there into Austria. In late December, when this unit was dissolved, Eichmann was promoted to SS-"Scharführer" (squad leader, equivalent to corporal). Eichmann's battalion of the Deutschland Regiment was quartered at barracks next door to Dachau concentration camp.