Melanesia (redirected from Melanesoid)

Melanesia (mĕlənē`zhə, –shə), one of the three main divisions of Oceania, in the SW Pacific Ocean, NE of Australia and S of the equator. Melanesia includes the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Tuvalu, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands, and Fiji. New Guinea is sometimes included in Melanesia. The Melanesians are largely of Australoid stock; they speak Malayo-Polynesian languages.

Bibliography

See study by H. C. Brookfield and D. Hart (1971).

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Melanesia

Island group, South Pacific Ocean. A subdivision of Oceania, it lies northeast of Australia and south of the Equator and includes New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, the Bismarck and Louisiade archipelagoes, the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Norfolk Island, and numerous others. Two distinct populations and cultures exist in the region. The Papuans, who have inhabited the area for 40,000 years, devised one of the earliest agricultural systems and developed the Papuan languages. Seafaring peoples with an Austronesian language and a Southeast Asian cultural tradition settled in the area about 3,500 years ago.

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Melanesia

one of the three divisions of islands in the Pacific (the others being Micronesia and Polynesia); the SW division of Oceania: includes Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Louisiade, Solomon, Santa Cruz, and Loyalty Islands, which all lie northeast of Australia

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Melanesia [mel·ə′nē·zhə]

(geography)

A group of islands in the Pacific Ocean northeast of Australia.

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Melanesia 

one of the chief island groups in Oceania, in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, extending almost 5,000 km from northwest to southeast between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. The main islands and groups are New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Fiji. With the exception of Fiji and New Guinea, the islands are possessions of Great Britain, France, and Australia. The Fiji Islands are an independent state; the western part of New Guinea (West Irian) belongs to Indonesia; and Papua New Guinea has been a self-governing territory since 1973. Total area, 956,300 sq km; population, 4,068,000 (1969).

The indigenous population of Melanesia consists of two linguistically distinct groups of peoples. The Papuans, accounting for about two-thirds of the total population, make up the first group, and the second group comprises the Melanesians (more than one-fourth of the population) and a small number of Polynesians and Micronesians. Papuans predominate on New Guinea, and Melanesians constitute the majority of the population in the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides and about half the population of New Caledonia and Fiji. The largest immigrant groups are Indians (half the population of Fiji) and French (more than one-third of New Caledonia’s inhabitants).

The islands of Melanesia are of continental and volcanic origin. There are many coral reefs in the shallows. The islands are composed of crystalline, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock (mostly andesite). Almost all the islands are mountainous, with elevations reaching 5,029 m on New Guinea, and the large islands have coastal lowlands. Melanesia is a region of recent volcanism and frequent earthquakes. The climate is equatorial and subequatorial, becoming tropical on the southern islands. The mean monthly temperatures range from 25° to 28°C . Annual precipitation totals 7,000–9,000 mm on the windward mountain slopes and 1,000–2,000 mm elsewhere. The river system is dense; on New Guinea it is well developed, with several rivers reaching 800 km in length. The flora is of the Malaysian type, with a small admixture of Australian varieties on New Guinea, and includes many endemics. The large northern islands are covered with dense, equatorial rain forests containing valuable varieties such as breadfruit trees, papayas, palms, rubber trees, sandalwood, and teak. Monsoon forests and savannas grow on the central and southern islands. The wildlife is similar to Australia’s and includes marsupials, New Guinea echidnas, cassowaries, and lyrebirds.

There are plantations of coconut palms, rubber trees, sugarcane, cocoa, and coffee. The chief exports are copra, cocoa beans, coffee, and rubber. Rice, corn, taro, cassava, and yams are grown for domestic consumption. Other economic activities include animal husbandry, fishing, logging, and the gathering of coral and mother-of-pearl. Nickel, cobalt, and chromium are mined in New Caledonia, manganese ores in the New Hebrides, and gold on New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji.

REFERENCES

Nevskii, V. V., and O. A. Nil’son. Okeaniia. Leningrad, 1965.
Mukhin, G. I. Avstraliia i Okeaniia, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1967. Okeaniia (handbook). Moscow, 1971.

L. A. MIKHAILOVA