Oceania
Oceania is the smallest continent, spanning the Pacific Ocean.
The region spans the Eastern and Western hemispheres and has an estimated land area of about 9,000,000 km².[1] Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are the four subregions that make up the geographical region of Oceania.[2]
Quick Facts
- Area
- 9,000,000 km2 (7th)
- Population
- Oceania (Year, 6th)ref
- Density
- 4.94 /km2
- GDP nominal
- $1.630 trillion (2018, 6th)
- GDP per capita
- $63,842 (2024, 2nd)
- Demonym
- Oceanian
- Time
- UTC+8 (Western Australia, Australia) to UTC–6 (Easter Island, Chile) (west to east)
Facts from the source article.
Geography and history
The island of New Guinea contains much of the world's third-largest surviving tropical rainforest area.[1] From that expression, French cartographer Adrien-Hubert Brué derived the shorter term Océanie in 1814.[3] Unlike other continental groupings, Oceania's parts are linked together by the ocean, which is why the term is used.[4]
What the cited sources add
The original UN definition from 1947 included Hawaii, which had not yet become a U.S. state.[5][6] The Oceania region was reorganised in the 4th revision (1999) following the cessation of the Pacific Islands Trust Territory.[6] A WorldAtlas article states that Oceania covers an area of 8,525,989 square km and 40 million people live there.[7] The same source notes that most of Oceania features tiny island countries or large archipelagos with scattered islands.[7]
A Science.gov record mentions a fungus distributed in tropical and sub-tropical regions including Oceania and Australia.[8] Since its establishment in 1947, the United Nations has applied its own geopolitical definition of Oceania, incorporating four of the five 19th-century subregions.[9][6] The UN definition comprises American Samoa, Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.[5][6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Middleton, "Rationale, experience and ethical considerations underpinning integrated actions to further global goals for health and land biodiversity in Papua New Guinea", Sustainability Science, 2020-11-01, p. 1653–1664 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Australia and Oceania: Physical Geography", education.nationalgeographic.org; Flicker, "Oxford Textbook of Geriatric Medicine", 2017, p. 55–62; "The Four Sub-regions Of Oceania", WorldAtlas, 26 December 2017; Montejo, "¿Cuándo se formó Oceanía, el continente más pequeño del planeta?", National Geographic en Español, 2023-12-26; Larousse, "Océanie - LAROUSSE", larousse.fr; "Oceania - Treccani", Treccani; CEON, "Atlas Geográfico Escolar - IBGE", Atlas Geográfico Escolar - IBGE (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grataloup, Christian, Continents et océans : le pavage européen du globe, Monde(s), 2013, volume nr 3, pages 240. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Tcherkézoff, Serge, Polynésie / Mélanésie. L'invention française des « races » et des régions de l'Océanie, Au vent des îles, Tahiti, 2009. .; Eperjesi, "The Imperialist Imaginary: Visions of Asia and the Pacific in American Culture", Dartmouth College Press, November 2022 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Countries or areas / geographical regions", United Nations; "Status of the 1950 Census Program in the United States: A Preliminary Report", United States. Bureau of the Census, 1951 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "Countries or areas / geographical regions", United Nations. facts only, no text reused. unstats.un.org
- "The Four Sub-regions Of Oceania", WorldAtlas, 26 December 2017. facts only, no text reused. worldatlas.com
- "ryukyu islands japan: Topics by Science.gov", Science.gov. facts only, no text reused. science.gov
- Wikipedia, "Oceania" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Countries or areas / geographical regions", United Nations (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Oceania (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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