PAPUA NEW GUINEA

PAPUA NEW GUINEA, also Papua Niugini. A state in the south-west Pacific, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and some 600 islands, the largest of which are New Britain, New Ireland, and Bougainville. Prior to independence in 1975, the southern half (Papua) was an Australian colony and the northern part (New Guinea) was administered by Australia under a mandate from the United Nations given after the First World War, when it ceased to be a German colony. The island of New Guinea was peopled by different waves of migrants, whose history is largely unknown. The terrain is rugged. Travel by air is more important than by road. Port Moresby, the capital, is not connected by road to any other urban area. The coastal population is thinly clustered in villages, but over one-third of the total population live in highland valleys. While settlement by Europeans has extended over a century, contact with many internal regions is fairly recent. Most of these communities were not known before 1930. Even in the 1950s, Australian administrative patrols were still establishing contact with people in remoter areas. These conditions have fostered cultural and linguistic diversity; there are some 700–750 languages belonging to two families, Papuan and Austronesian, as well as an indigenous PIDGIN, Hiri Motu, and an English-based pidgin, TOK PISIN. Both serve as LINGUA FRANCAS and share official status with English. See MELANESIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH.