Australasia and Oceania

Political map of Oceania.

Two geographical terms; Australasia is applied somewhat loosely to the islands of the South Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, and their adjacent islands, while Oceania is a general or collective name for the groups of islands in the southern and central Pacific Ocean, comprising all those intervening between the southeastern shores of Asia and the western shores of America. The 10,000 or more Pacific Islands offer a great diversity of environments, from almost barren, waterless coral atolls to vast, continental islands.

Area 8,500,000 sq km/3,300,000 sq mi (land)

Largest cities (population over 500,000) Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Auckland

Features the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench −11,034 m/−36,201 ft is the greatest known depth of sea in the world; Ayers Rock in Northern Territory, Australia, is the world's largest monolith; the Great Barrier Reef is the longest coral reef in the world; Mount Kosciusko 2,229 m/7,316 ft in New South Wales is the highest peak in Australia; Aoraki 3,764 m/12,349 ft is the highest peak in New Zealand

Physical Oceania can be broadly divided into groups of volcanic and coral islands on the basis of the ethnic origins of their inhabitants: Micronesia (Guam, Kiribati, Mariana, Marshall, Caroline Islands), Melanesia (Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji Islands, Solomon Islands), and Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa, Line Islands, Tuvalu, French Polynesia, Pitcairn); the highest point is Mount Wilhelm, Papua New Guinea 4,509 m/14,793 ft; the lowest point is Lake Eyre, South Australia −16 m/−52 ft; the longest river is the Murray in southeast Australia 2,590 km/1,609 mi; Australia is the largest island in the world. Most of the small islands are coral atolls, though some are of volcanic origin

Population (2000 est) 30.5 million, rising to over 39 million by 2025; annual growth rate from 1980 to 1985 1.5%; Australia accounts for 65% of the population

Language English, French (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, Vanuatu); a wide range of indigenous Aboriginal, Maori, Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian languages and dialects (over 700 in Papua New Guinea) are spoken

Religion predominantly Christian; 30% of the people of Tonga adhere to the Free Wesleyan Church; 70% of the people of Tokelau adhere to the Congregational Church; French overseas territories are largely Roman Catholic

Industries With a small home market, the region has a manufacturing sector dedicated to servicing domestic requirements and a large export-oriented sector, 70% of which is based on exports of primary agricultural or mineral products. Australia is a major producer of bauxite, nickel, silver, cobalt, gold, iron ore, diamonds, lead, and uranium; New Caledonia is a source of cobalt, chromite, and nickel; Papua New Guinea produces gold and copper. Agricultural products include coconuts, copra, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, phosphates (Nauru), rubber (Papua New Guinea), 40% of the world's wool (Australia, New Zealand); New Zealand and Australia are, respectively, the world's second- and third-largest producers of mutton and lamb; fishing and tourism are also major industries.

History There is a mixed diversity of race, language, and culture. The islands of Melanesia, dominated by Papua New Guinea, were the first to be settled. Human prehistory may stretch back some 40,000 years in Papua New Guinea, and recent archaeology in the highlands suggests that agriculture was practised there as long as 9,000 years ago. But the settlement of the remainder of the Pacific occurred only during the last 6,000 years, and in Polynesia as recently as 2,000 years ago. Food crops (notably yam, taro, banana, and coconut) and domestic animals (pig, dog, chicken) are all of Southeast Asian origin, with the exception of the sweet potato (important in the Papua New Guinea highlands and Polynesia), which was probably introduced into the Pacific from America.