Papua New Guinea

• 1. Introduction

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  Papua New Guinea is home to about 840 known languages, more than any other country in the world. Most are spoken by fewer than a thousand people, and the typical language has only around 7,000 speakers. That one figure hints at how many separate worlds sit inside a single nation. The country takes in the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and hundreds of islands scattered across the southwestern Pacific. How did so many communities stay distinct for tens of thousands of years? Who drew the borders that finally bound them together, and why was the very idea of a country foreign to many of the people inside them? And how does a modern parliament work when loyalties run to villages, clans and valleys? The answers begin with the land itself.

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• 2. Mountains and Rivers

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  Mount Wilhelm climbs 4509 metres above sea level, the highest point in a country where mountains cover at least 72 percent of the land. Plains make up 15 percent and swamps another 11 percent. The whole nation spans 462840 square kilometres. The ruggedness has a tectonic cause. New Guinea sits where the north-moving Indo-Australian plate meets the west-moving Pacific plate. That collision puts the country on the Pacific Ring of Fire, with 14 known active volcanoes, 22 dormant ones and frequent earthquakes.

  The Sepik River drains a great depression across the north, and it can be navigated for about half of its length. In the east, the Ramu and Markham Rivers run through a trough between the ranges. In the south, the Fly River begins in the central mountains and stays navigable for most of its course. The country holds over 5,000 lakes, but only 22 of them exceed 1000 hectares. The largest, Lake Murray, covers 64700 hectares.

  Off the northeast coast lie four larger islands, which are Bougainville, Manus, New Britain and New Ireland. Over 600 smaller islands surround them, and many have steep slopes and only narrow coastal strips. Volcanic activity around Rabaul, on the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain, has left the soil unusually fertile.

  The weather swings as sharply as the terrain. The area around Port Moresby sits in a rain shadow and receives less than 1000 millimetres of rain a year. Some highland areas receive over 8000 millimetres. Above 2100 metres, night frosts are common even though the country lies in the tropics. On Bougainville, populations on the Carteret Islands are expected to be forced to move as sea levels rise.

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• 3. Gardens and Trade

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  Between 42,000 and 45,000 years ago, modern humans first reached the land that would become New Guinea, along with Australia and the Bismarck Archipelago. People settled Bougainville by about 28,000 years ago and distant Manus Island by about 20,000 years ago. These were among the earliest migrations out of Africa, and the descendants stayed largely cut off from the wider world. Rising seas separated New Guinea from Australia about 10,000 years ago. By then, the peoples of the two landmasses had already been diverging for roughly 27,000 years.

  Around 7000 BC, highland communities developed agriculture on their own. That makes the region one of the few places on Earth where people domesticated plants without outside influence. Sago, Canarium indicum and karuka were already cultivated before full-scale farming began.

  By 3,300 years ago, Austronesian-speaking people of the Lapita culture had reached the Bismarck Archipelago. Strong evidence places them on coasts from about 500 BC, and their communities joined larger trade networks. Banana and sugarcane likely travelled out of New Guinea along these routes. Trade grew rarer around 300 AD, when demand shifted toward the Maluku Islands and Timor.

  In the late 17th century, renewed trade reached eastern New Guinea. Buyers wanted dammar gum, sea cucumbers, pearls, copra, shells and bird-of-paradise feathers. Even so, each community lived mostly from its own gardens. Goods passed along chains of local exchanges and travelled far, though the people themselves did not. Some villagers knew the languages of their nearest neighbours, but language did not signal political loyalty.

  A crop from another continent then reshaped the highlands. Portuguese traders brought the South American sweet potato to the Moluccas. It likely entered what is now Papua New Guinea in the 17th or 18th century, first along the southern coast. It spread inland, replaced taro as the staple food, and fed major population growth. It also allowed farming as high as 2700 metres, and it likely helped spread the Big man social structure.

  Nothing in this past had prepared these communities for large political units. European rule would soon create them, often by joining groups that were enemies or strangers.

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• 4. Names and Colonial Rule

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  In 1526, the Portuguese explorer Jorge de Menezes named the island Ilhas dos Papuas, borrowing a local term of uncertain origin. Nearly two decades later, in 1545, the Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez coined the name Nueva Guinea. He saw a resemblance between the islanders and people he had met along the Guinea coast of Africa. That name likely means something like "of the burnt face", a reference to dark skin. The Portuguese explorer António de Abreu is credited as the first European to find the island.

  On the 15th of September 1847, a group of Marist missionaries landed on Woodlark Island and introduced Christianity. Missions became the main channel for Western culture as well as religion. Meanwhile, from the 1860s, people from New Guinea, mostly from coastal Papua, were taken as slaves to Queensland and Fiji. The practice, known as blackbirding, was stopped in 1884. Returning workers brought a Melanesian pidgin home, and it eventually grew into the language called Tok Pisin.

  The year 1884 also brought the partition. Germany took the north and the United Kingdom took the south. The German New Guinea Company first tried to run plantations, and when that failed it turned to barter trade. In the British area, gold turned up near the Mambare River in 1895. In 1902, Papua passed effectively to the newly federated Australia. The Papua Act 1905 renamed it the Territory of Papua, and Australian administration became formal in 1906.

  Colonial rule rearranged daily life. Authorities outlawed tribal warfare, and it became normal to travel for paid work. Roads connected inland areas. The wide gap between administrators and locals gave rise to what colonial governments called cargo cults. German officials reluctantly tolerated Tok Pisin as it spread. In the British and then Australian zone, Hiri Motu, a pidgin form of the Motu language, became a de facto official language.

  After war broke out in 1914, Australian forces captured German New Guinea. The League of Nations authorised Australia to administer it as a mandate from the 9th of May 1921. Gold was found at Bulolo in the 1920s, and prospectors pushed further. In the 1930s, they found highland valleys inhabited by over a million people.

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• 5. War and Handover

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  In mid-1942, Japanese forces invaded overland, aiming to capture Port Moresby, and fought their way south along the Kokoda Track. Australian troops carried out rearguard actions as they fell back almost to the capital. In September, an Australian counter-offensive began. Local soldiers and helpers made major contributions to the campaign. At Milne Bay, a Japanese attack was repulsed by Australian and American forces. Together with the fighting at Guadalcanal, these battles marked a turning point in the Pacific War. Allied forces fully recaptured the territory in 1944, after a long war of attrition. About 216,000 Japanese, Australian and American servicemen died in the New Guinea campaign.

  The war broke the belief that locals and foreigners were fundamentally different. It also moved large numbers of people around, which began to build a shared identity across the two Australian-ruled territories. Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu both spread, partly through radio broadcasts. In 1946, New Guinea became a United Nations trust territory under Australia. In 1949, Papuans became Australian citizens, and the two territories were formally combined. A Legislative Council followed in November 1951.

  Village councils, first created in 1949, slowly shifted power toward leaders with administrative or business experience. Aerial surveys in the 1950s revealed more inhabited highland valleys, and some tribes had no contact with Westerners until the 1960s and 1970s. Coffee growing expanded across the highlands. In 1968, the country's first political party, Pangu Pati, was formed ahead of that year's election. Australia itself was unsure whether the territory should become independent or an Australian state.

  The Australian Opposition Leader Gough Whitlam visited in 1969 and made self-rule an election issue. In March 1971, the House of Assembly recommended seeking self-governance. In June, a flag and emblem were adopted, and in July the "and" was dropped, leaving the name Papua New Guinea. Michael Somare became Chief Minister after the July 1972 election. Whitlam became Australian Prime Minister that December, and self-governance began in late 1973. The kina was introduced as a separate currency in April 1975.

  The push for independence came mostly from the policies of the Whitlam government, not from calls within the territory. Many people had little sense of a shared country, and some feared that large tribes would dominate the rest. Local leaders built the consensus that followed. Independence arrived on the 16th of September 1975, with Somare as the first Prime Minister. Most Australian officials, including agricultural, medical and educational staff, left almost at once. Very little training had been provided to their successors.

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• 6. Fault Lines After Independence

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  On the 1st of September 1975, just days before the scheduled handover, the government of Bougainville declared its own independence. The national government suspended payments to the province in response. An agreement in August 1976 settled that first crisis. The episode led to the Organic Law on Provincial Government, which devolved power to 19 provinces. Other movements surfaced too. Papua Besena wanted Papua separated from New Guinea, and the Highlands Liberation Front wanted to stop coastal dominance of the highlands.

  The first state of emergency in the highlands came in 1979, as tribal fighting increased during the 1970s. Outside control there was recent, so old rivalries were still remembered. In cities, unemployment and unbalanced gender ratios turned tribal fighting into gang violence. A state of emergency in Port Moresby in 1984 brought in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force. Traditional fighters once used axes and bush knives and respected rules, such as no violence while hunting or at markets. Firearms and stolen ammunition have eroded those norms. The gangs are known as raskols, and some have become linked to politicians.

  Bougainville's grievance had deeper roots. Mining exploration by Rio Tinto began there in 1964, and the Bougainville Copper corporation soon opened a large mine over resistance from some landowners. The island is culturally closer to the Solomon Islands than to the rest of the territory. Yet the mine was seen as crucial to diversifying an economy that depended on agriculture. Once construction ended, it employed fewer workers, and young people gained little from it.

  A renewed uprising began in 1988. The mine closed in May 1989, and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army declared independence. In 1990, the national government withdrew and blockaded the province, and the conflict became a complex civil war. Security forces returned at the end of 1990 and slowly gained ground. A partial agreement came in October 1994, and a transitional government followed in 1995. The Sandline affair, over the hiring of mercenaries, brought down the national government in 1997. After New Zealand-mediated talks, a ceasefire came in January 1998.

  The Bougainville Peace Agreement of 2001 promised higher autonomy and a future independence referendum. A 2015 mining law shifted control of mining to the Bougainville government and gave customary landowners a veto over future extraction. In the non-binding referendum held on the 23rd of November 2019-98.31 percent of voters chose independence.

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• 7. Coalition Politics

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  Parliament has 118 seats, and 22 of its members double as governors of their provinces. Of the rest, 96 represent districts. Charles III is king, represented by a governor-general whom the unicameral National Parliament elects. Parliament also elects the prime minister, and the governor-general then makes the appointment. Under the Limited Preferential Vote, voters must rank at least three candidates. Despite constant turbulence, the country has held democratic elections and changed governments without interruption since independence.

  Every government since 1972 has been a coalition, and some have included up to 10 parties. Parties rarely differ by ideology. They mostly reflect alliances among their members, and many exist only briefly. Party hopping, nicknamed "yo-yo" politics, keeps coalitions fragile. Voters often accept a representative switching sides, since joining the government can bring their district more attention. Ministers hold a particular portfolio for an average of just 16 months. Only two prime ministers have served a full term from one election to the next.

  The 1997 election shows how fragmented the contests can be. Only 4 candidates won outright majorities, and 95 of the winners, or 87 percent, took less than 30 percent of the vote. Some winners have taken under 10 percent. In every election up to at least 2004, most incumbents lost their seats. That encourages new members to gain personal advantage quickly. Each member controls Rural Development Funds for their constituency, and the sums under such discretionary control are among the highest in the world.

  In 2011, a constitutional crisis pitted Peter O'Neill, whom a large majority of MPs had chosen, against Somare, whom the supreme court deemed still in office. The 2012 elections went ahead as scheduled, and O'Neill was elected again. In May 2019, he resigned amid scandals, and James Marape replaced him. Marape's PANGU Party won the most seats in 2022.

  Obligations to kin shape political life. Under the wantok system, constituents expect loyalty and rewards from their representatives. Politicians jailed for corruption have been re-elected, because voters saw the favours as benefits to the community. Language shapes how the state speaks. Parliamentary debates mix English and Tok Pisin, the national judiciary uses English, and provincial and district courts usually use Tok Pisin or Hiri Motu. Village courts may use a local language, and the weekly newspaper Wantok is printed in Tok Pisin.

  About 97 percent of the land is customary land held by communities. That is why a new school or airstrip can trigger demands for compensation.

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• 8. Resources and Rainforest

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  Extractive industries account for 86 percent of all exports, led by gold, copper, cobalt, nickel, oil and liquefied natural gas. The biggest mine is a private gold mine on Lihir Island, followed by the state-run Ok Tedi Mine and the Porgera Gold Mine. Exports of liquefied natural gas began in 2014, though disputes over revenue sharing have delayed new projects. Yet agriculture provides about 85 percent of jobs, and nearly 40 percent of people are subsistence farmers living largely outside the cash economy. Palm oil and coffee are significant crops, at 1.6 percent and 1 percent of world output.

  The terrain makes travel difficult, so air travel is the most reliable way to get around. The country has over 500 airstrips, mostly unpaved, and five highways, of which only two reach the interior. Lae Port handles about half of all international cargo. In 2016-55 percent of urban houses had electricity, compared with 10 percent of rural houses, up from 3 percent in 1996.

  Nobody knows exactly how many people live here. Official estimates put the population at 11.8 million, but a December 2022 satellite-based survey suggested 17 million. In July 2023, the United Nations settled on 11.8 million. Only 14 percent of people lived in towns and cities in 2023. Port Moresby, Lae, Mount Hagen, Madang and Wewak are the larger settlements.

  The forests hold about 5 percent of all known species, and perhaps a third of those live nowhere else. They form the third-largest contiguous rainforest in the world. Scientists have recorded over 2,000 species of orchids and around 2,000 species of ferns. The country is thought to have 150,000 insect species, 813 birds, 352 amphibians, 335 reptiles and 298 terrestrial mammals. The large islands to the northeast were never linked to a bigger landmass. Birds-of-paradise, bowerbirds and monotremes are completely absent from them, though they have their own endemic animals, such as fruit bats.

  Between 1972 and 2002, nearly a quarter of the rainforests were damaged or destroyed, and around 15 percent were completely cleared. Up to 70 percent of logging may be illegal. Coral reefs surround the country across at least 13840 square kilometres and form part of the Coral Triangle. On the 11th of June 2025, at a United Nations conference in Nice, the country signed the High Seas Treaty to protect marine life.

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