Papua New Guinea is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, it shares its only land border with Indonesia to the west and it is directly adjacent to Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).
Kerepunu women at the marketplace of Kalo, British New Guinea, 1885
Female gable image, Sawos people, Oceanic art in the Bishop Museum
British annexation of southeast New Guinea in 1884
Australian forces attack Japanese positions during the Battle of Buna–Gona, 7 January 1943.
Oceania is a geographical region comprising Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 44.4 million as of 2022. When compared to the other continents, Oceania is the smallest in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.
A 19th-century engraving of an Aboriginal Australian encampment
Stone money transport to Yap Island in Micronesia (1880)
Moai at Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
New Zealand troops land on Vella Lavella, in Solomon Islands