Portal:Oceania

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The Oceania Portal

An orthographic projection of Oceania

Oceania (UK: /ˌoʊsiˈɑːniə, ˌoʊʃi-, -ˈeɪn-/ OH-s(h)ee-AH-nee-ə, -⁠AY-, US: /ˌoʊʃiˈæniə, -ˈɑːn-/ ^ⓘ OH-shee-A(H)N-ee-ə) 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 continents (which it is often compared to, not including Australia), Oceania is the smallest in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.

Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia, French Polynesia, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, which rank high in quality of life and Human Development Index, to the much less developed economies of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western New Guinea, while also including medium-sized economies of Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, and Tonga. The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, and the largest city is Sydney. Puncak Jaya in Highland Papua, Indonesia, is the highest peak in Oceania at 4,884 m (16,024 ft).

The arrival of European settlers in subsequent centuries resulted in a significant alteration in the social and political landscape of Oceania. The Pacific theatre saw major action during the First World War with the Japanese occupying many German territories. During the Second World War, Allied powers the United States, Philippines (a U.S. Commonwealth at the time) and Australia fought against Axis power Japan across various locations in Oceania. (Full article...)

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Landsat satellite image of Lanai

Lanai (Hawaiian: Lānaʻi, Hawaiian: [laːˈnɐʔi, naːˈnɐʔi], /ləˈnaɪ, lɑːˈnɑːi/ lə-NY, lah-NAH-ee, also US: /lɑːˈnaɪ, ləˈnɑːi/ lah-NY, lə-NAH-ee,) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineapple plantation. The island's only settlement of note is the small town of Lanai City. , the island is 98% owned by Larry Ellison, cofounder and chairman of Oracle Corporation; the remaining 2% is owned by the state of Hawaii or individual homeowners.

Lanai is a roughly apostrophe-shaped island with a width of 18 miles (29 km) in the longest direction. The land area is 140.5 square miles (364 km²), making it the 43rd largest island in the United States. It is separated from the island of Molokaʻi by the Kalohi Channel to the north, and from Maui by the Auʻau Channel to the east. The United States Census Bureau defines Lanai as Census Tract 316 of Maui County. Its total population rose to 3,367 as of the 2020 United States census, up from 3,193 as of the 2000 census and 3,131 as of the 2010 census. As visible via satellite imagery, many of the island's landmarks are accessible only by dirt roads that require a four-wheel drive vehicle due to the lack of paved roadways. (Full article...)

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[[File:Rongorongo B-v Aruku-Kurenga (color) edit1.jpg|right|thumb|upright=2|[[Rongorongo text B|Tablet B Aruku kurenga]], verso. One of four texts which provided the Jaussen list, the first attempt at decipherment. Made of Pacific rosewood, mid-nineteenth century, Easter Island. (Collection of the SS.CC., Rome)]]

There have been numerous attempts to decipher the rongorongo script of Easter Island since its discovery in the late nineteenth century. As with most undeciphered scripts, many of the proposals have been fanciful. Apart from a portion of one tablet which has been shown to deal with a lunar calendar, none of the texts are understood, and even the calendar cannot actually be read. The evidence is weak that rongorongo directly represents the Rapa Nui language – that is, that it is a true writing system – and oral accounts report that experts in one category of tablet were unable to read other tablets, suggesting either that rongorongo is not a unified system, or that it is proto-writing that requires the reader to already know the text. Assuming that rongorongo is writing, there are three serious obstacles to decipherment: the small number of remaining texts, comprising only 15,000 legible glyphs; the lack of context in which to interpret the texts, such as illustrations or parallel texts which can be read; and the fact that the modern Rapa Nui language is heavily mixed with Tahitian and is unlikely to closely reflect the language of the tablets—especially if they record a specialized register such as incantations—while the few remaining examples of the old language are heavily restricted in genre and may not correspond well to the tablets either.

Since a proposal by Butinov and Knorozov in the 1950s, the majority of philologists, linguists and cultural historians have taken the line that rongorongo was not true writing but proto-writing, that is, an ideographic- and rebus-based mnemonic device, such as the Dongba script of the Nakhi people, which would in all likelihood make it impossible to decipher. This skepticism is justified not only by the failure of the numerous attempts at decipherment, but by the extreme rarity of independent writing systems around the world. Of those who have attempted to decipher rongorongo as a true writing system, the vast majority have assumed it was logographic, a few that it was syllabic or mixed. Statistically, it appears to have been compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary. The topic of the texts is unknown; various investigators have speculated they cover genealogy, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. Oral history suggests that only a small elite were ever literate, and that the tablets were considered sacred.^{[page needed]} (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Oceania-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Manila Galleon in the Marianas and Carolinas, c. 1590 Boxer Codex (from Micronesia)
Image 2Tarawa Atoll (from Micronesia)
Image 3Māori war canoe drawn after James Cook's voyage to New Zealand. (from Polynesia)
Image 4Map from 1961 of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, formerly Japan's South Seas Mandate. (from Micronesia)
Image 5Painting of Tahitian Women on the Beach by Paul Gauguin—Musée d'Orsay (from Polynesia)
Image 6Grinding stones discovered from archaeology in Samoa (from Polynesia)
Image 7Melanesia is one of three major cultural areas of the Pacific Ocean islands, along with Micronesia and Polynesia. (from Melanesia)
Image 8Micronesia is one of three major cultural areas of the Pacific Ocean islands, along with Melanesia and Polynesia. (from Micronesia)
Image 9Köppen-Geiger climate classification map of Melanesia (from Melanesia)
Image 10Outline of sovereign (dark orange) and dependent islands (bright orange) (from Polynesia)
Image 11A depiction of a royal heiau (Hawaiian temple) at Kealakekua Bay, c. 1816 (from Polynesia)
Image 12Subregions (Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and Australasia), as well as sovereign and dependent islands of Oceania (from Micronesia)
Image 13Polynesia is one of three major cultural areas of the Pacific Ocean islands, along with Melanesia and Micronesia. (from Polynesia)
Image 14The arrival of Abel Tasman in Tongatapu, 1643; drawing by Isaack Gilsemans (from Polynesia)
Image 15Languages of Micronesia. (from Micronesia)
Image 16Australia's concept of Australasia, which includes Australia, New Zealand and, in this case, Melanesia (from Australasia)
Image 17Cook's Bay on Moorea, French Polynesia (from Polynesia)
Image 18King Kamehameha I receiving the Russian naval expedition of Otto von Kotzebue. Drawing by Louis Choris in 1816. (from Polynesia)
Image 19Polynesian (Hawaiian) navigators sailing multi-hulled canoe, c. 1781 (from Polynesia)
Image 20Carving from the ridgepole of a Māori house, ca 1840 (from Polynesia)
Image 21New Caledonia (from Melanesia)
Image 22Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Prime Minister of Samoa from 1998 to 2021, who initiated the Polynesian Leaders Group in late 2011. (from Polynesia)
Image 23A common fishing canoe va'a with outrigger in Savaiʻi island, Samoa, 2009 (from Polynesia)
Image 24Chamorro people in 1915 (from Micronesia)
Image 25Image of the Castle Bravo nuclear test, detonated on 1 March 1954, at Bikini Atoll (from Micronesia)
Image 26Mount Marpi in Saipan. (from Micronesia)
Image 27Chronological dispersal of Austronesian peoples across the Indo-Pacific (from Micronesia)
Image 28Outline of sovereign (dark orange) and dependent islands (bright orange) (from Melanesia)
Image 29Polynesians with outrigger canoes at Waikiki Beach, Oahu Island, early 20th century (from Polynesia)
Image 30Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian Triangle. (from Polynesia)
Image 31Outline of sovereign (dark orange) and dependent islands (bright orange) (from Micronesia)
Image 32The Polynesian spread of colonization in the Pacific (from Polynesia)
Image 33Spinner dolphins (from Micronesia)
Image 34An illustration of the Cross Spikes Club of the US Navy on Bikini Atoll, one of several Marshall Islands used for atomic bomb tests. (from Micronesia)
Image 35Sailors of Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, 1846 (from Melanesia)
Image 36Chronological dispersal of Austronesian peoples across the Indo-Pacific (from Melanesia)
Image 37Map of Melanesia, showing its location within Oceania (from Melanesia)
Image 38Beach scenery at Laura, Majuro, Marshall Islands (from Micronesia)
Image 39Mokoliʻi Isle near Oahu, Hawaii (from Polynesia)
Image 40German New Guinea before and after the German-Spanish treaty of 1899 (from Micronesia)
Image 41German trading station at Jaluit Atoll with a Marshallese korkor outrigger canoe in the foreground (from Micronesia)
Image 42Moai at Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui (from Polynesia)
Image 43On February 14, 1779, Capt. James Cook was killed on the island of Hawaii (from Polynesia)
Image 44A Melanesian child from Vanuatu (from Melanesia)
Image 45Mount Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea (from Melanesia)
Image 46Cinder plain of Mount Yasur in Vanuatu (from Melanesia)
Image 47Subregions (Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Australasia), as well as sovereign and dependent islands of Oceania (from Polynesia)
Image 48Map showing the migration and expansion of the Austronesians which began at about 3000 BC from Taiwan. The Polynesian branch is shown in green. (from Polynesia)
Image 49Canoe carving on Nanumea atoll, Tuvalu (from Polynesia)
Image 50Kili Island is one of the smallest islands in the Marshall Islands. (from Micronesia)
Image 51Aerial view of Solomon Islands (from Melanesia)
Image 52A pan flute from Solomon Islands, 19th century (from Melanesia)