Oceania is n’t a mythical subaquatic domain like the lose metropolis ofAtlantis . rather , it ’s a existent place , resting in the grandness of thePacific Ocean . If you ’ve ever spent time in Australia or New Zealand , you were in Oceania , but that ’s just the beginning . This unthinkably vast region stretches on for many more nautical mile , often just bits of dry land glance out of the capital blue ocean . Here are nine matter to know about it .
1. Oceania Is a Humungous Geographical Region
Oceania is an incredibly huge geographical region with bound that geographers ca n’t quite agree on . It consists of Australia , and a configuration of islands , large and minuscule , mostly turn up N and east of Australia . By some counting , there are roughly 10,000 such islands covering more than 100 million substantial kilometers ( 38,600,000 solid mile ) of sea surface , but just over 8 million hearty kilometers ( 3 million square nautical mile ) of Edwin Herbert Land .
The realm ’s so enormous that if you include surface weewee and surface country , it ’s bigger than all the other land area on Earth – merge .
Most of the islands are downright tiny and uninhabited . But others , like New Zealand and the eastern half of New Guinea , are sizable by comparison .
2. There Are Four Main Regions Within Oceania
Oceania is so enormous that geographer discontinue it into smaller ball . The most vernacular subdivision are Australia , follow by Melanesia ( from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to Tonga ) ; Micronesia ( more than 600 island in the Pacific , like Palau , Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia ) ; and Polynesia ( more than 1,000 islands let in New Zealand , Cook Island , Samoa and Hawaii . )
the great unwashed have lived in Australia for at least 60,000 years , and they reach theSolomon Islandsabout30,000 years ago . But in other midget remote areas of Southeast Asia , humans are comparative freshman , having arrived just 1,000 age ago .
How they did so befuddles many scientist , who fight to see how prehistorical masses with few legal instrument couldpossibly voyage the immense watersseparating these far - flung outposts .
3. Until Recently, Cannibalism Was Just Fine
Oceania is known for itscannibalistic yesteryear . In 1839 , two British missionary confab Erromango , part of the Vanuatu archipelago , which in older times was called Martyr ’s Island . They were devoured by the locals . Anthropologists trust that cannibalism was practiced in that domain until at least 1969 . One local in 2008 evengave out the recipefor cooking a human after killing ( baking time is three to five hours . )
On Fiji , the practice of human flesh eatingsurviveduntil at least the 1800s . The notion was that eating your foe transferred their power to you . Even in 2011,there were reportsthat a German holidaymaker was feed in Gallic Polynesia , though expert think it was more likely a garden - motley murder with the killertrying to incinerate grounds of the body . Nowadays , " cannibal tours " are propose for tourists , and souvenir workshop selling " cannibal dolls " are abundant in the Pacific Islands .
4. The Land Is Great, but the People Are Few
Some sources estimate thatsheep actually outnumber peoplein Oceania . Most of its landmasses are sparsely populated , but there are roughly42 millionpeople living there , strewn throughout 14 dissimilar country .
Australia ( 25 million ) make up most of the population , followed by Papua New Guinea ( 9 million ) , New Zealand ( 5 million ) , Fiji ( 1 million ) and the Solomon Islands ( nearly 700,000 ) . The stay on rural area are Federated States of Micronesia , Kiribati , Marshall Islands , Nauru , Palau , Samoa , Tonga , Tuvalu and Vanuatu .
dominion and habituation admit American Samoa , Cook Islands , French Polynesia , Guam , New Caledonia , Niue , Northern Mariana Islands , Pitcairn Island , Tokelau , and Wallis and Futuna . Niue and Tokelau are the least populated places in Oceania — less than 1,700 people each .
5. Most of Oceania is Underwater
No wonder the region is called Oceania — water is Oceania ’s defining feature . Most of the region isunder the Pacific Ocean — just 8 percent is aboveground ( as we said earlier 100 million square kilometers of sea but just 8 million square kilometer of land ) . Given its small per centum of land mass , perhaps it ’s no surprise that Oceania ’s universe density is just eight people per square kilometer ( roughly three hoi polloi per square nautical mile ) .
6. Bungee Jumping was Invented in Oceania
Safety alert : please do not adjudicate this at home .
On the southerly tip of Pentecost Island , Vanuatu , the local men exercise what ’s call Gol , orNanggol – land diving . They construct haphazardly - looking stick tugboat , marry vine to their articulatio talocruralis and then jump off headfirst .
These plunges see the hurl bodies get through speed of 45 mph ( 72 kph ) or more . And the most successful dives are the ace where the Man can tuck their heads at the last present moment and light brush their articulatio humeri against the ground , stop just short of certain death .
Good dives – ostensibly , the ones where people survive – purportedly ensure a bountiful yam plant harvest . The event is now a tourist attractive force and is considered the primogenitor to modernbungee jumping , only without any guard features whatsoever … unless you count forest vines . The land has adjudicate to get royalties from adventure fellowship that on the face of it rend off the practice .
7. Climate Change Endangers Parts of Oceania
As the satellite warms due to climate change , rise seas are encroaching on Oceania ’s island . One Polynesian island , named Tuvalu , about halfway between Australia and Hawaii – is , as the local say , " sinking . "
As the Ethel Waters arise , the beaches are slipping under the waves , slowly devouring this pocket-sized island . Crops go bad to thrive in the piquant stain . mood change - related illness ( like ciguatera poisoning from devour fish that deplete micro - algaes throw out from bleached coral ) are increasing . Tuvalu is place to 11,000 mass and is the fourth - smallest state on Earth . But it may not be home to anyone in the next 50 to 100 twelvemonth , or perhaps even earlier . The island of Kiribati is also"disappearing . "
8. UNESCO World Heritage Sites Are Everywhere
Oceania is home to scores ofUNESCO World Heritage Sites . These sites meetstringent criteriafor their importance in relation to ethnic , natural or historical landmarks .
In that regard , Oceania contains anembarrassment of riches . Here , you ’ll chance UNESCO World Heritage sites like Australia ’s far-famed ( and dying ) Great Barrier Reef , Hawaii ’s Mauna Loa ( the largest active volcano on the major planet ) , the Auckland Islands , the Sydney Opera House and Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands .
And how about Mount Cook National Park , which protect New Zealand ’s tallest mountain ? There ’s also Fraser Island , the cosmos ’s tumid moxie island , and the Phoenix Islands Protected Area , which keep up one of the heavy stay pelagic wildernesses on Earth .
9. Oceania Is Very Wealthy - and Very Poor
Due to its sheer sprawling size , Oceania include 1000000 of multitude living in starkly unlike circumstances . Australia and New Zealand both land in the top 10 of theUnited Nations Human Development Index , which shows where countries rank according to criterion of living , life expectancy and other factors .
Near the bottom of the list Trygve Halvden Lie Kiribati , Tuvalu , the Solomon Islands , and Vanuatu . These are some of what the U.N. calls the Least highly-developed Countries . For example , the gross domestic product per capitain Australia is more than $ 51,000 while in the Solomon Islands it is around $ 2,400 . New Zealanders can look to live past 82 years on average ; on Vanuatu , the average is 70 years .
