Oceania

Area 9,008,458 km 2 (6.1%) Population 32 million inhabitants. Density 4 inhabitants / km 2 Country 15 Dependencies 15 Main languages English , French Time Zones UTC-11 ( Samoa ) UTC +12 ( Kiribati ) More cities Sydney , Honolulu , Auckland , Noumea
Oceania portal

Satellite photography centered on Oceania.

Oceania is a vast region comprising the territories within the Pacific Ocean. It is one of five traditional divisions of the landmass of the planet (omitting the Antarctic ).

It includes the Australia , the New Zealand , the New Guinea and other islands and archipelagos. Australia covers a vast majority of its surface, and, while Oceania can not be treated as a continent, the mainland of Australia can itself be regarded as the smallest of the continents.

The French neologism "Oceania" comes from the word " ocean "is a place-name invented in 1812 by Danish-born French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun ( 1775 - 1826 ), which has widely disseminated the vision of a world divided into five "continents". The feminine gender is akin to other parties (Europe, Africa ...). The adjective and noun "South Pacific" appeared in 1845, demonstrating the success of this invention. ^General

Oceania is generally described as the world region that lies between the South-East Asia and South America. This is one reason why geographers have described Bonnemaison Antheaume and Oceania and the broader Pacific basin as a "pull-out space" .

"Through the evocation of significant traits of modernity and tradition, the center-periphery relations at various scales, the area of the Pacific appears in fact as a complex space structure to" pull ", as was well expressed B. Anthaume and J. Bonnemaison in 1988, in their Atlas of the Pacific: the broader the Pacific Basin which covers 25 million square km and the Asia-Pacific region, including Oceania, and finally at the heart of the Pacific Islands. Obviously, this nomenclature sometimes ask to be clarified. For example, New Zealand Is the sum of two large islands, but remains "external" to the Pacific island, making for a large Polynesian community, Papua New Guinea covered by the Funds, such as Australia, the mainland Oceania, but may be included in the Pacific island since it is involved, despite its mass, the problem of the islands, beyond the fact that its citizens received wages Melanesian traditions. "

- Changes in geopolitical and strategic Pacific islands and Australasia at the turn of the twenty-first ^century.JP Doumenge in geostrategic, April 2001 - No. 4

If these divisions, based originally on ethnic and racial stereotypes (black skin against bronzed skin, hair "kinky" or "woolly" hair versus "wavy", "Melanesian cannibals" versus "Polynesian" noble savage "...) are Today hardly acceptable expressions Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are still often-used and retain the current language and in the eyes of the people concerned some relevance identity.

In the 1970s , linguists and geographers , suggested to subdivide their scientific work, the near Oceania and Remote Oceania. Yet again, this new arrangement, whether in the choice of these two designations that can be confusing or vague as the demarcation of these two sets is far from unanimous.

Without doubt we must understand the ocean primarily as a continuum where for centuries, well before the passage of the first Europeans, interbreeding and mixing cultural and language were common. Continuum which does not, however, breaks, whether between linguistic and non-Austronesian languages Austronesian island world geography between sets and more consistent than are Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea ; between a historical-linguistic and Oceania Oceania English speaking or Hispanic with Easter Island, from cutting the colonial economy between developed and developing countries ; policy between independent countries and territories under trusteeship ...

Countries and territories

The following list and map pertaining thereto, comprise the most comprehensive manner possible, the different countries and territories comprising this space (when the territory is not independent, it depends on the country in brackets). This dependence is also very different degrees by territories, ranging from one province or territory fully integrated status through overseas territory or quasi-independent country until the independence of law with free association with another by a bilateral treaty of cooperation).

Besides the traditional cartographic representation of states of Oceania, all contained in Atlas for the general public, there are another Marine, shown on charts and / or geopolitical.

The latter allows to grasp the extent of such waters and the actual shape of these states due to their territorial waters in 1988.

Usual mapping of Oceania, and mapping real, according to the Atlas of the Pacific states and islands south of 1988 .

Larger towns

The largest cities in Oceania are mainly in Australia, the country's most populous continent. Here are the standings:

1. Sydney with 4.4 million inhabitants (Australia)
2. Melbourne with 3.5 million inhabitants (Australia)
3. Brisbane , with 1.8 million inhabitants (Australia)
4. Perth with 1.4 million inhabitants (Australia)
5. Adelaide 1.1 million (Australia)
6. Auckland with 1.1 million (New Zealand)
7. Honolulu with 900 000 inhabitants (Hawaii)
8. Gold Coast 550 000 (Australia)

History

The peopling of Oceania has been through two major waves of migration. The first was a 45 to 50 000 years or more, and led to hunter-gatherers to inhabit the Indian Archipelago and the nearby ocean , that is to say, New Guinea , some islands the Melanesia and Australia. The second wave is more recent and started there about 6000 years. It leads farmers and sailors speaking of Austronesian languages to populate the Indies or the Philippines , the Malaysia , and Indonesia.

It is from the very beginning of the ^sixteenth century that Europeans in the world intrude Pacific. These initial contacts are slow because they are spread over four centuries, unevenly distributed because they are more intense in the east and west of Oceania.

Oceania is then confronted with the colonial period , the Netherlands is very active on the continent. Decolonization that follows will be late and Oceania remains the continent that has the decolonized later, the latter having started in 1962 and continuing even today.

Economy

Major economic players in the zone, Australia and New Zealand are among the developed countries , often included in the Triad. They are exporters, among others, raw materials and trading with the East Asia and the countries of America. Other countries of Oceania, which rarely exceed a "critical mass" to influence the international scene, are less economically integrated with the world.

Languages

The languages of Oceania are divided into two distinct groups:

• The Papuan languages are spoken among others in the highlands of New Guinea and some islands of the current Indonesia. Most linguists classify languages Australian Aborigines in a separate group. The large number of these languages (with some 900 dialects), many have died and the little knowledge that we can be risky, however make any definitive conclusion.
• The Austronesian languages , whose extension covers part of South East Asia , Madagascar and all the Pacific island east coast of New Guinea until the Easter Island.

Some linguists are classified separately languages spoken on the eastern coast of New Guinea, other Pacific island languages.

References

See also

Related articles

• League of Oceanists
• Pacific Community
• Peopling of Oceania

External link

Category Oceania directory dmoz

Countries and dependencies of Oceania

Australasia Ashmore and Cartier- (Australia) Australia Christmas Island (Australia) Cocos Islands (Australia) Islands Coral Sea (Australia) Norfolk Island (Australia) New Zealand Melanesia Fiji Indonesia ( Maluku , West New Guinea ) New Caledonia (France) Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands East Timor Vanuatu Micronesia Guam (USA) Kiribati Northern Mariana Islands (USA) Marshall Islands Federated States of Micronesia Nauru Palau Wake Island (U.S.) Polynesia Cook Islands (New Zealand) Hawaii (USA) Minor Outlying Islands (U.S.) Niue (New Zealand) Easter Island (Chile) Pitcairn Islands (United Kingdom) French Polynesia (France ) Samoa American Samoa (U.S.) Tokelau (New Zealand) Tonga Tuvalu Wallis and Futuna (France)

Landmasses of the Earth
Model 4 continents	America Antarctica Afro-Eurasian Oceania
Model 7 continents	North America South America Antarctica Africa Asia Europe Oceania
Palaeocontinents	Supercontinent Gondwana Laurasia Pangea Pannotia Rodinia Columbia Kenorland Ur Vaalbara Continents Arctica Asiamrique a href = "Atlantica" class = "new" title = "Atlantica (non-existent page)"> Atlantica Avalonia Baltica Cimmeria Kazakhstania Laurentia Laurussia Siberia Ur
Geological evolution future	Pangea ultimate Amasia
Submerged continents	Zealandia Kerguelen Plateau Mascarene Plateau Sahul Sunda
Imaginary continents	Atlantis Hyperborea Lemuria Kumari Kandam Mu Terra Australis

• Portal Oceania
• Portal insular world
• Portal of the maritime world

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