Melanesia is the subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, running from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east and bordering Southeast Asia, Micronesia, Polynesia and Australia. It comprises the independent nations of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, along with New Caledonia and the Indonesian provinces of Western New Guinea. The French navigator Jules Dumont d'Urville coined the name in 1832 alongside Micronesia, to sit beside the already established Polynesia, but geographers and anthropologists still disagree about exactly where its boundaries run, including whether Fiji belongs here or in Polynesia. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Area (sq km)2021 UN geoscheme totals row. Population2021 UN geoscheme totals row. FAQs
Is the name Melanesia still used today given its colonial origins?
Yes, and many of the people it describes have given it a positive meaning, though some scholars find its history problematic.
Yes. Some scholars find the term problematic because of its historical associations with European exploration and colonisation, and the racism embedded in these. Even so, the political scientist Stephanie Lawson writes that the term has acquired a positive meaning and relevance for many of the people to whom it applies.
Connections
Associated With
Melanesia is one of Oceania's constituent subregions, alongside Micronesia and Polynesia.
Source Melanesia (Wikipedia)
Open Questions
Source Melanesia (Wikipedia)
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Origin Of
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Source Wikipedia: Cargo CultLead sectiontier 3Quote, Lead section
Cargo cults are spiritual and political movements that arose among indigenous Melanesians following Western colonisation of the region in the early 20th century.
Found There
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Source Wikipedia: Sugarcanetier 2
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Source Oceanic languages, WikipediaLead sentence 1Quote, Lead sentence 1
The Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages comprising some 450 languages spoken in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.
Also in Nature Atlas: found in this subject.
Also in Nature Atlas: found in this subject.
Sources
1. Melanesia (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationDefinition and location section
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east.
Demographics section, totals row
Melanesia (total) 1,000,231 [km2] 14,373,536 [population in 2021]
Introduction
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
View the Source Wikidata: Melanesia
Open Questions (1 open question)
Which islands and peoples actually belong inside Melanesia, and does the category itself still hold together?
Melanesia was coined in 1832 by Jules Dumont d'Urville alongside Micronesia, to sit beside the already-established Polynesia, originally on now-rejected racial grounds. There is no general agreement even among anthropologists about where its geographical boundaries run: whether New Guinea belongs fully inside it, whether Fiji is better classified as Melanesian or Polynesian given its historical and genetic ties to both, and how to classify Torres Strait Islander communities. Modern scholarship has moved toward defining the region by shared cultural and linguistic features rather than the original racial classification, but that shift has not settled where the lines fall.
What would resolve this A cultural or linguistic classification standard for the region that current Pacific studies scholarship agrees on and applies consistently to the contested cases (New Guinea, Fiji, Torres Strait); no such consensus standard exists yet.
Anthropology and Pacific studiesMelanesia (Wikipedia)
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