ABSTRACT
The islands of Oceania encompass four major ethnographic regions scattered across 65 million square miles of the Pacific and four time zones. These regions are: (1) Melanesia in the southwest Pacific, dominated by New Guinea, the second-largest island in the world with a population of nearly four million, greater than that of the other three regions combined; (2) the huge central Pacific triangle of Polynesia, with its corners at Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand; (3) the numerous small islands of Micronesia, most of which lie north of the equator and west of the International Date Line, consisting largely of four principal island groups (the Marianas, Carolines, Marshalls, and Gilberts); and (4) the continent of Australia.
