|
Oceania
An orthographic projectiion of Oceania.
Oceania (sometimes Oceanica) is a geographical, and often geopolitical, region consisting of numerous lands—mostly islands in the Pacific Ocean and vicinity. The term "Oceania" was coined in 1831 by French explorer Dumont d'Urville. The term is used today in many languages to denote a continent comprising Australia and proximate Pacific islands, and is one of eight terrestrial ecozones.
The boundaries of Oceania are defined in a number of ways. Most definitions include parts of Australasia such as Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and all or part of the Malay Archipelago.[title=United Nations Statistics Division - Countries of Oceania ] Ethnologically, the islands that are included in Oceania are divided into the subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
ExtentOceania is traditionally understood as being composed of three regions: Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. As with any region, however, interpretations vary; increasingly, geographers and scientists divide Oceania into Near Oceania and Remote Oceania.
Most of Oceania consists of island nations comprising thousands of coral atolls and volcanic islands, with small human populations. Australia is the only continental country but Indonesia has land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. If the Australia-New Guinea continent is included then the highest point is Puncak Jaya in Papua at m and the lowest point is Lake Eyre, Australia at m below sea level
. Citation needed
Territories and regionsDescriptions of the regions and constituents of Oceania vary according to source. The table below shows the subregions and countries of Oceania as broadly categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations.
Oceania Labelled Map
Copyright Citations
This article is licensed under the GNU License
Click here for original article: Oceania
|
