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Pacific Islands

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Pacific Islands leaders, all members of the Pacific Islands Forum, at a meeting in Samoa with former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (center), 26 July, 2008

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania,[1] although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago.

Three of the major groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific Islands lying south of the tropic of Cancer are traditionally grouped into the three divisions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia:

The region's islands are classified into two groups, high islands and low islands. Volcanoes form high islands, which generally can support more people and have a more fertile soil. Low islands are reefs or atolls, and are relatively small and infertile. Melanesia, the most populous of the three regions, contains mainly high islands, while most of Micronesia and Polynesia are low islands. In addition, there are many other islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean that are not considered part of Oceania. These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador; the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, United States; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands; Taiwan and other islands of the Republic of China; the Philippines; islands in the South China Sea, which includes the disputed South China Sea Islands; most of the islands of Indonesia; and the island nation of Japan, which comprises the Japanese Archipelago.

  • Nauru (along with Kiribati's Banaba island) could be counted as somewhat of an exception. The indigenous Nauruans are both a mosaic and mixture of groups from all three categories- with cultural influence stemming primarily from Micronesia. The island was also said to be an extreme point of the "Tongan Empire" and may as a result share subtle cultural and, obviously, historical aspects with Polynesia. Lastly, the people speak a language and have a number of genes not in common with any of the three regions. Of the three, Nauru is least like Polynesia and Melanesia and for practical applications, Nauru is either assigned to Micronesia or designated as a separate entity (with the former being the most common).

Contents

[edit] List of islands

This is a list of many of the major Pacific islands, organized by archipelago or political unit. In order to keep this list of moderate size, links are given to more complete lists for countries with large numbers of small or uninhabited islands.

Note: many Polynesian languages have a glottal stop, which in most of them is seldom written, however. If a name with a < ʻ > cannot be found, try to rewrite it without it. See 'okina for more info.

  • Japan an archipelago of 6,852 islands
  • Niue (Savage Island)

[edit] See also

[edit] Pacific islands by continent

[edit] Antarctica

[edit] Asia

[edit] Central America

[edit] North America

[edit] Oceania

[edit] European islands in Oceania
[edit] U.S. islands in Oceania

[edit] South America

[edit] Islands of adjacent oceans

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Collins Atlas of the World, Page 83

[edit] References

  • William Collins Sons & Co Ltd (1983), Collins Atlas of the World (revised 1995 ed.), London W6 8JB: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-448227-1 
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