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The Oceania Portal

Map of Oceania

Oceania is a geographical (often geopolitical) region consisting of numerous countries and territories—mostly islands—in the Pacific Ocean. The exact scope of Oceania is controversial, with varying interpretations including East Timor, Australia, and New Zealand.

The primary use of the term Oceania is to describe a continental region (like Europe or Africa) that lies between Asia and the Americas, with Australia as the major land mass. The name Oceania is used, rather than Australasia, because unlike the other continental groupings, it is the ocean rather than the continent that links the nations together. Oceania is the smallest continental grouping in land area and the second smallest, after Antarctica, in population.

  

Daily article

Geodesy Collection on Pitcairn Island.

The Pitcairn Islands (Pitkern : Pitkern Ailen) are a group of four islands, of which only Pitcairn Island — the second largest — is inhabited, in the southern Pacific Ocean, the only remaining British colony in the Pacific. The islands are best known for being the home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians who accompanied them.

With only about fifty inhabitants (from nine families), Pitcairn is also famed for being the least populated country in the world (although it is not a sovereign nation). The capital is Adamstown, Pitcairn Island.

  

Selected article

L'Astrolabe making water on a floe, 6 February 1838

Rear Admiral Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (May 23, 1790, Condé-sur-Noireau, France – May 8, 1842, Meudon, France) was a French explorer and naval officer, who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica.

D'Urville made three circumnavigations of the world; the first as second in command on La Coquille under Duperrey in 1822-25, and the others as captain of the same ship, now renamed Astrolabe, in 1826-29 and 1837-40.

He invented the terms Micronesia and Melanesia, distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from Polynesia. The D'Urville Sea, D'Urville Island and the Dumont d'Urville Station (all in or off Antarctica), Cape d'Urville in Indonesia and D'Urville Island in New Zealand were named after him. The Rue Dumont d'Urville in Paris was also named for him.

  

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