"islets or rocks off their coastlines. The chain is associated with the Macdonald hotspot. The only active volcano is the Macdonald seamount (40m depth). In administrative terms, the Austral Islands (including the Bass Islands) constitute an administrative subdivision, the Tuha'a Pae or Austral Islands (""subdivision administrative des (Îles) Australes""), one of French Polynesia's five administrative subdivisions (""subdivision administratives""). Geographically, the administrative subdivision of the Austral Islands is identical with the constituency of the Austral Islands (""circonscription des Îles Australes""), one of French Polynesia's six constituencies (""circonscriptions électorales"") for the Assembly of French Polynesia. The capital of the Austral Islands administrative"
"Tuamotus The Tuamotus, also referred to in English as the Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands (', officially '), are a French Polynesian chain of almost 80 islands and atolls forming the largest chain of atolls in the world. This archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean stretches from the northwest to the southeast over an area roughly the size of Western Europe. The total area of land within this chain is , with its major islands being Anaa, Fakarava, Hao and Makemo. The Tuamotus have approximately 16,000 inhabitants. The islands were initially settled by Polynesians, and from them modern Tuamotuans"
"second largest island after Greenland and by far the largest of the Pacific islands. The other main Melanesian groups from north to south are the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands archipelago, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia. Polynesia, stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, also encompasses Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and the Kermadec Islands to the west, the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Austral Islands in the center, and the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Mangareva Islands, and Easter Island to the east. Australasia comprises Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring"
"north of Australia. The total area of the islands is 8,152.42 km (3,147 sq mi). The largest island is Tanahbesar (also called Wokam); Dobo, the chief port of the islands, is on Wamar, just off Tanahbesar. Other main islands are Kola, Kobroor, Maikoor, and Trangan. The main islands rise to low hills, and are separated by meandering channels. Geologically, the group is part of the Australian continent, along with New Guinea, Tanimbar, Tasmania, Waigeo, and Raja Ampat on the Indo-Australian Plate. Aru is covered by a mix of tropical moist broadleaf forests, savanna, and mangroves. The Islands lie on the"
"to the northwest (Matureivavao, Tenararo, Tenarunga, Vahanga), and the also uninhabited atolls of Maria Est and Morane, and finally, the pearl farm atoll of Marutea Sud. This group of islands and atolls covers an area of 32.06 km². All of these archipelagos are administered as a single municipality (commune), with the main village of Rikitea, on the largest island of Mangareva. The commune of Gambier comprises: The Gambier Islands (Gambier), together with the islands in the eastern part of the Tuamotus (Anaa, Fangatau, Hao, Hikueru, Makemo, Napuka, Nukutavake, Puka-Puka, Reao, Tatakoto and Tureia), form ""Îles Gambier et Tuamotu Est"", one"
"The other main Melanesian groups from north to south are the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia. The largest area, Polynesia, stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, also encompasses Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and the Kermadec Islands to the west, the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Austral Islands in the center, and the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Mangareva Islands, and Easter Island to the east. Islands in the Pacific Ocean are of four basic types: continental islands, high islands, coral reefs and uplifted coral platforms. Continental islands lie outside"
"Geography of the Marshall Islands The Marshalls consist of 29 atolls and five isolated islands, which form two parallel groups—the ""Ratak"" (sunrise) chain and the ""Ralik"" (sunset) chain. The Marshalls share maritime boundaries with Micronesia and Kiribati. Two-thirds of the nation's population lives in Majuro and Ebeye. The outer islands are sparsely populated due to lack of employment opportunities and economic development. Location: Oceania, group of atolls and reefs in the North Pacific Ocean, about one-half of the way from Hawaii to Papua New Guinea Geographic coordinates: Map references: Oceania Area: <br>""total:"" 181.3 km² <br>""land:"" 181.3 km² <br>""water:"" 0 km²"
"New Zealand, in the Polynesian region of the Pacific Ocean. The total land area is 2,842 km (1,097 sq mi), consisting of the two large islands of Upolu and Savai'i (which together account for 99% of the total land area) and eight small islets. These are the three islets in the Apolima Strait (Manono Island, Apolima and Nu'ulopa), the four Aleipata Islands off the eastern end of Upolu (Nu'utele, Nu'ulua, Namua, and Fanuatapu), and Nu'usafe'e which is less than 1 hectare (2½ acres) in area and about 1.4 km (0.9 mi) off the south coast of Upolu at the village"
"The land and sea area of the archipelago exceeds 2 million km. The more than 25,000 islands of the archipelago comprise many smaller archipelagoes. The major groupings are: The seven largest islands are New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Java in Indonesia; and Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines. Geologically, the archipelago is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world. Producing many volcanoes especially in Java, Sumatra and Lesser Sunda Islands region where most volcanoes over situated. Tectonic uplifts also produced large mountains, including the highest in Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, with a height of 4,095.2"
"a year previously. Micronesia is a region that includes approximately 2100 islands, with a total land area of , the largest of which is Guam, which covers . The total ocean area within the perimeter of the islands is . There are four main island groups in Micronesia: Plus the island country of Nauru. The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago consisting of about 500 small coral islands, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines. The Carolines consist of two states: the Federated States of Micronesia, consisting of approximately 600 islands on the eastern side of the"
"uninhabited and does not have its own official flag. French Polynesia is an overseas collectivity of France. It consists of six archipelagos: the Austral Islands, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesas Islands, the Tuāmotu Islands, plus the Leeward Islands and the Windward Islands (the last two collectively formerly known as the Society Islands). Although French Polynesia has no first-order administrative subdivisions within the meaning of the ISO 3166-2 coding scheme, there are five second-order subdivisions that correspond to each of the archipelagos, except that the Gambier and Tuāmotu Islands are combined into a single administrative division. None of these divisions has"
"to the ""Encyclopædia Britannica"", the Pacific islands consist of three regions: The islands are scattered across a triangle covering the east-central region of the Pacific Ocean. The triangle is bound by the Hawaiian Islands in the north, New Zealand in the west, and Easter Island in the east. The rest of Polynesia includes the Samoan islands (American Samoa and Western Samoa), the Cook Islands, French Polynesia (Tahiti and The Society Islands, Marquesas Islands, Austral Islands and the Tuamotu Archipelago), Niue Island, Tokelau and Tuvalu, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna, Rotuma Island and Pitcairn Island. The island of New Guinea, the Bismarck"
"census). The total land area of the islands of Tuvalu is . The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesians. The pattern of settlement that is believed to have occurred is that the Polynesians spread out from Samoa and Tonga into the Tuvaluan atolls, with Tuvalu providing a stepping stone to migration into the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia and Micronesia. In 1568, Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to sail through the archipelago, sighting the island of Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. The island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island in 1819; the"
"Geography of Palau The Republic of Palau consists of eight principal islands and more than 250 smaller ones lying roughly 500 miles southeast of the Philippines. The islands of Palau constitute part of the Caroline Islands chain. Location: Oceania, group of islands in the North Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Philippines Geographic coordinates: Map references: Oceania Area: <br>""total:"" 459 km² <br>""land:"" 459 km² <br>""water:"" 0 km² Area - comparative: slightly more than 2.5 times the size of Washington, DC Land boundaries: 0 km Coastline: 1,519 km Maritime claims: <br>""territorial sea:"" 3 nm <br>""exclusive fishing zone:"" 200 nm Climate: tropical; hot"
"islands are Stewart Island (across the Foveaux Strait), Chatham Island, Great Barrier Island (in the Hauraki Gulf), d'Urville Island (in the Marlborough Sounds) and Waiheke Island (about from central Auckland). New Zealand is long and narrow (over along its north-north-east axis with a maximum width of ), with about of coastline and a total land area of . Because of its far-flung outlying islands and long coastline, the country has extensive marine resources. Its exclusive economic zone is one of the largest in the world, covering more than 15 times its land area. The South Island is the largest landmass"
"Tokelau Tokelau (; previously known as the Union Islands, and officially as Tokelau Islands until 1976; lit. ""north-northeast"") is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls (Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo), with a combined land area of . The capital rotates yearly between the three atolls. Tokelau lies north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands, and northwest of the Cook Islands. Swains Island is geographically part of Tokelau, but is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute and"
"by humans. The Mariana Islands are the southern part of a submerged mountain range that extends from Guam to near Japan. Geographically, the Marianas are the northernmost islands of a larger island group called Micronesia, situated between 13° and 21°N latitude and 144° and 146°E longitude. The Mariana Islands have a total land area of . They are composed of two administrative units: The island chain geographically consists of two subgroups, a northern group of ten volcanic main islands, all are currently uninhabited; and a southern group of five coralline limestone islands (Rota, Guam, Aguijan, Tinian and Saipan), all inhabited"
"geographical resources themselves, with abundant shoreline, generally calm seas, and steady winds favouring the use of sailing vessels, and fertile valleys and plains—at least in the Greater Sunda Islands—permitting irrigated rice farming. The heavily forested, mountainous interior hinders overland communication by road or river, but fosters slash-and-burn agriculture. Area: <br>""total land area:"" 1,904,569 km (""land:"" 1,811,569 km, ""inland water:"" 93,000 km) (35,907 mi) Area - comparative: Slightly smaller than Nunavut, Canada <br>Slightly larger than combined area of Alaska and New England <br>More than 27 times larger than Republic of Ireland <br>""territorial area:"" 5,193,250 km <br>""total area (including exclusive economic zone):"""
"and the continental mainland by a series of waterways collectively known as the Northwestern Passages. Two large peninsulas, Boothia and Melville, extend northward from the mainland. The archipelago consists of 36,563 islands, of which 94 are classified as major islands, being larger than , and cover a total area of . The islands of the archipelago over , in order of descending area, are: After Greenland, the archipelago is the world's largest high-Arctic land area. The climate of the islands is arctic, and the terrain consists of tundra except in mountainous areas. Most of the islands are uninhabited; human settlement"
"The group consisted of six separate islands with a total area of 240 square miles (625 km). Although Bristow took possession of the Auckland Islands for the British Crown they proved of little value during the 19th century. A short lived settlement led by Charles Enderby, whose father owned the ship on which Bristow discovered the islands, led a short-lived whaling settlement that lasted from 1849 to 1852. Another attempt to colonize the islands, by a mixed group of group of Maori and Moriori natives from the Chatham Islands, lasted a little longer (1843 to 1856). After leaving the Auckland"
"of Fire are a possible cause of a tsunami. There is earthquake activity in the Solomon Islands, where earthquakes occurred along the boundary of the Pacific Plate with, respectively, the Indo-Australia, Woodlark, and Solomon Sea plates. Tuvalu consists of three reef islands and six true atolls. Its small, scattered group of atolls have poor soil and a total land area of only about 26 square kilometres (less than 10 sq. mi.) making it the fourth smallest country in the world. The islets that form the atolls are very low-lying. Nanumaga, Niutao, Niulakita are reef islands and the six true atolls"
"of the Americas. It comprised four regions: ""Polynesia"", ""Micronesia"", ""Malaysia"" (now called the Malay Archipelago), and ""Melanesia"". Today, parts of three geological continents are included in the term ""Oceania"": Eurasia, Australia, and Zealandia, as well the non-continental volcanic islands of the Philippines, Wallacea, and the open Pacific. Oceania extends to New Guinea in the west, the Bonin Islands in the northwest, the Hawaiian Islands in the northeast, Rapa Nui and Sala y Gómez Island in the east, and Macquarie Island in the south. Not included are the Pacific islands of Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, the Japanese archipelago, and the Maluku"
"the atolls of Marokau, Hikueru, Ravahere, Reitoru and Tekokota. Marokau Marokau is an atoll of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. It lies 53 km southeast of Hikueru Atoll and it is separated by a 2 km wide sound from Ravahere, its closest neighbor in the south. Marokau and Ravahere form a minor subgroup of the Tuamotus known as the Two Groups Islands. Marokau Atoll is roughly triangular. The islands on its reef have a combined land area of 14.7 km². The shallow lagoon has a surface of 215.6 km². Marokau has 91 inhabitants. Most live in Vaiori, the main"
"Auckland Islands The Auckland Islands (Māori: ""Motu Maha"" or ""Maungahuka"") are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying south of the South Island. The main Auckland Island, occupying , is surrounded by smaller Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island, and Green Island, with a combined area of . The islands have no permanent human inhabitants. The islands are listed with the New Zealand Outlying Islands. The islands are an immediate part of New Zealand, but not part of any region or district, but instead ""Area Outside Territorial Authority"", like all the other outlying islands except"
"area of 16.4 km² (6.33 mi²) and surrounds one of the largest lagoons in the world, with an area of 2174 km² (839 mi²). The average height above sea level for all the islands is about . Islands often have alternate names: the first is the Marshallese name, the second was assigned somewhat arbitrarily by the US Navy prior to their attack on the atoll during World War II. The original name was considered too difficult for English speakers to properly differentiate among the islands. The latter has often been retained by English speakers. The exception to this is Kwajalein"
"as a partner in negotiations. The Falkland Islands have a land area of and a coastline estimated at . The archipelago consists of two main islands, West Falkland and East Falkland, and about 776 smaller islands. The islands are predominantly mountainous and hilly, with the major exception being the depressed plains of Lafonia (a peninsula forming the southern part of East Falkland). The Falklands consists of continental crust fragments resulting from the break-up of Gondwana and the opening of the South Atlantic that began 130 million years ago. The islands are located in the South Atlantic Ocean, on the Patagonian"
"of 8,148,250 square kilometres (3,146,057 sq. mi). This exclusive economic zone does not include the Australian Antarctic Territory (an additional 5,896 square kilometres). Australia has the largest area of ocean jurisdiction of any country on earth. It has no land borders. The northernmost points of the country are the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland and the Top End of the Northern Territory. The western half of Australia consists of the Western Plateau, which rises to mountain heights near the west coast and falls to lower elevations near the continental centre. The Western Plateau region is generally flat, though broken by"
"two geographical divisions: the northern group, consisting of Eiao, Hatutu (Hatutaa), Motu One, and the islands centered on the large island of Nuku Hiva: Motu Iti (Hatu Iti), Ua Pou, Motu Oa and Ua Huka, and the southern group of Fatu Uku, Tahuata, Moho Tani (Motane), Terihi, Fatu Hiva and Motu Nao (Thomasset Rock), clustered around the main island of Hiva Oa. With a combined land area of , the Marquesas are among the largest island groups of French Polynesia originally discovered by Spanish galleons fleets en route to Manila, Nuku Hiva being the second largest island in the entire"
"Wallacea Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and many smaller islands. The islands of Wallacea lie between Sundaland (the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali) to the west, and Near Oceania including Australia and New Guinea to the south and east. The total land area of Wallacea is 347,000 km². The boundary between Sundaland and Wallacea follows the Wallace Line, named after"
"15 small islands whose total land area is 240 square kilometres (92.7 sq mi). The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), however, covers 1,800,000 square kilometres (690,000 sq mi) of ocean.[4] As at the 2006 census the population of the Cook Islands was 19,569. As at 2014 approximately 3000 children participate in formalised cricket activities and approximately 900 adults. As at 2014 10 of 13 inhabited islands participate in junior cricket. Southern Group Northern Group As at 2014 6 of 13 inhabited islands participate in senior men's and women's cricket. Southern Group Northern Group In 2010 Cook Islands Cricket introduced"
"8,063,601 km Land boundaries: <br>""total:"" <br>""border countries:"" Malaysia , Papua New Guinea , East Timor <br>""Other nearby countries:"" Australia, Brunei, India, Singapore, Palau, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam Coastline: Maritime claims: measured from claimed archipelagic baselines <br>""territorial sea:"" <br>""exclusive economic zone:"" Elevation extremes: <br>""lowest point:"" Sea level at 0 m (sea surface level); southern portion of the Philippine Trench, east of Miangas at <br>""highest point:"" Puncak Jaya (also known as ""Carstensz Pyramid"") 4,884 m Land use: <br>""arable land:"" 12.97% <br>""permanent crops:"" 12.14% <br>""other:"" 74.88% (2013) Irrigated land: 67,220 km (2005) (25,953 mi) Total renewable water resources: 2,019 km (2011) (484 mi) Freshwater"
"World War II—until Papua New Guinea became independent in September 1975. The Bismarck Archipelago includes mostly volcanic islands with a total land area of . The archipelago encompasses the Bismarck Sea and sits upon the North Bismarck Plate, the Manus Plate and the South Bismarck Plate. Islands are grouped here according to administrative province: The passage of water between the islands of New Britain and New Ireland is called ""St. George's Channel"" after St. George's Channel in the British Isles between Wales and Ireland. Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New"
"Marokau Marokau is an atoll of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia. It lies 53 km southeast of Hikueru Atoll and it is separated by a 2 km wide sound from Ravahere, its closest neighbor in the south. Marokau and Ravahere form a minor subgroup of the Tuamotus known as the Two Groups Islands. Marokau Atoll is roughly triangular. The islands on its reef have a combined land area of 14.7 km². The shallow lagoon has a surface of 215.6 km². Marokau has 91 inhabitants. Most live in Vaiori, the main village, located on an island at its northern end."