50 Fun Facts About Oceania

Which country, with more than 800 living languages, is the most linguistically diverse on Earth?

Papua New Guinea counts around 840 known languages, more than any other country. Tok Pisin is the lingua franca that lets its many groups talk to each other.

Which Marshall Islands atoll did the US use for 23 nuclear tests, including the 15-megaton Castle Bravo blast?

Bikini Atoll's first blast in July 1946 was only four days old when French designer Louis Réard unveiled a two-piece swimsuit at a Paris pool and borrowed the atoll's name for it.

Which city was built as Australia's capital as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne?

Canberra had to stand at least 100 miles from Sydney under the deal, and it was laid out to a plan by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

Which Hawaiian volcano is the tallest mountain on Earth when measured from its base on the seafloor?

Mauna Kea hides most of its bulk under water, so only 4,207 metres show above the sea. Its summit hosts the Maunakea Observatories, the largest facility of its kind in the world.

Which meringue dessert topped with cream and fruit do Australia and New Zealand both claim to have invented?

Pavlova is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured both countries in the 1920s, and each nation still insists the dessert was first made in her honour on its soil.

Which Chilean territory, over 3,500 km from the mainland, is dotted with nearly 1,000 giant stone moai?

Easter Island was named by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who came across it on Easter Sunday in 1722; the statues were carved by its Rapa Nui people.

Which Australian mammal, one of very few that are venomous, did British scientists first suspect was a hoax?

Platypus males have a spur on each hind foot that delivers an extremely painful venom. The first preserved body to reach Britain, with its duck's bill and beaver's tail, was judged a fake sewn together from several animals.

Which Pacific island nation funds part of its government by leasing out its internet country code, .tv?

Tuvalu leases the .tv domain to video and streaming sites, a rare export for a country of low atolls whose highest point is only 4.6 metres above sea level.

Which New Zealand city, famous for its wind, is the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state?

Wellington has been the capital since 1865 and is also the world's windiest city, with gusts funnelled through Cook Strait giving it an average wind speed of 27 km/h.

Which Australian natural wonder, visible from space, is the largest structure on Earth built by living things?

The Great Barrier Reef was built by billions of tiny coral polyps, and it is really a chain of over 2,900 separate reefs stretching more than 2,300 km along the Queensland coast.

Which sacred sandstone monolith in central Australia was closed to climbers for good in October 2019?

Uluru was handed back to its Aṉangu owners in 1985, and they had long asked visitors not to climb because the path crosses a traditional Dreamtime track.

Which island, 240 km south of the Australian mainland across Bass Strait, was once called Van Diemen's Land?

Tasmania took its present name in 1856, partly to distance its free settlers from a convict past: the transportation of prisoners to the island had ended only three years earlier.

Which Pacific abyss holds the Challenger Deep, a point farther below sea level than Everest rises above it?

The Mariana Trench was first sounded with a weighted rope by the Challenger expedition in 1875, and its deepest known point lies about 10,935 metres down.

Which 40,000 km belt around the Pacific Ocean produces about 90% of the world's earthquakes?

The Ring of Fire also contains around two-thirds of the world's active or dormant volcanoes, from New Zealand north through Japan and down the west coast of the Americas.

Which constellation, the smallest of all 88, appears on the national flags of Australia and New Zealand?

The Southern Cross, known to astronomers as Crux, is easy to pick out despite its size because its main stars are so bright, and it also flies on the flags of Brazil and Samoa.

Which Māori ceremonial dance have New Zealand's All Blacks performed before rugby matches since 1905?

Haka became famous worldwide through 'Ka Mate', a chant attributed to the war leader Te Rauparaha, which the team turned into its choreographed pre-match challenge.

Which flightless New Zealand bird lays an egg weighing up to a fifth of the female's body weight?

Kiwi are also the only birds with nostrils at the end of their long beaks, so they can sniff out worms underground, and New Zealanders have adopted the bird's name for themselves.

Which New Zealand beekeeper made the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953?

Edmund Hillary went on to reach the South Pole overland in 1958, then spent decades helping the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded.

Which aviator vanished over the Pacific in 1937 while trying to find tiny Howland Island?

Amelia Earhart was trying to become the first female pilot to circle the globe, and Howland, her next stop, was a flat sliver of land about 2 km long and more than 4,000 km from her take-off point.

Which Pacific nation of more than 330 islands won its first ever Olympic medal, a rugby sevens gold, in 2016?

Fiji beat Great Britain 43–7 in the Rio final, a fitting first medal for a country that counts rugby sevens as its national sport.

Which island, the largest in French Polynesia, did the painter Paul Gauguin make his home in the 1890s?

Tahiti gave Gauguin the subjects of paintings such as Two Tahitian Women, and Papeete, on its north-west coast, is the capital of French Polynesia.

Which Aboriginal wind instrument is traditionally made from a eucalyptus trunk hollowed out by termites?

Didgeridoo players keep the drone going without a pause by circular breathing: they draw air in through the nose while their cheeks squeeze stored air out through the mouth.

Which Hawaiian instrument, whose name roughly means 'jumping flea', grew out of small Portuguese guitars?

Ukulele may owe its name to the way a player's fingers leap about the strings; it was developed in the 1880s from the machete and other small guitars brought by migrants from Madeira and the Azores.

Which Pacific nation of 32 atolls and one solitary island is spread across all four hemispheres?

Kiribati is pronounced 'Kiribass', because the name is simply the local rendering of 'Gilberts', and its easternmost islands keep the most advanced time zone on Earth, UTC+14.

Which Pacific nation includes Pentecost Island, where men dive from wooden towers with vines tied to their ankles?

Vanuatu's attorney-general backed the islanders in 1995 when they said they would seek royalties from bungee jumping companies, because they saw the sport as a stolen tradition.

Which Polynesian kingdom, nicknamed the Friendly Islands, never gave up its sovereignty to a foreign power?

Tonga got the nickname from the warm reception given to Captain James Cook in 1773, and it is still ruled by an unbroken line of hereditary monarchs from one family.

Which Pacific nation, home to a lake of millions of harmless golden jellyfish, created the first shark sanctuary?

Palau banned commercial shark fishing across its waters in 2009, and the jellyfish in its famous lake do have stinging cells, but they are generally too weak to hurt swimmers.

Which US territory, the largest island in Micronesia, uses the unofficial motto 'Where America's Day Begins'?

Guam was captured by the United States in 1898 after more than three centuries under Spain, and it is the westernmost territory of the United States.

Which Pacific region has a Greek-derived name meaning 'black islands', coined by a French navigator in 1832?

Melanesia was named by Jules Dumont d'Urville, who coined Micronesia at the same time to sit alongside the older term Polynesia; his three-way split of the Pacific is still used.

Which Māori name for New Zealand is usually translated as 'land of the long white cloud'?

Aotearoa was originally used by Māori for the North Island alone; in one telling, a long white cloud guided a voyaging canoe to land by day.

Which remote British territory in the Pacific was settled in 1790 by mutineers from HMS Bounty?

The Pitcairn Islands settlers burned the Bounty soon after landing, and its wreck can still be seen under water in Bounty Bay; today's islanders descend mainly from the mutineers and their Tahitian companions.

Which of the Solomon Islands was the scene of the first major Allied land offensive against Japan in 1942?

Guadalcanal was fought over for exactly six months, much of it for an airstrip the Americans named Henderson Field; the last Japanese troops slipped away in February 1943.

Which balsa-wood raft did Thor Heyerdahl sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, a voyage of 101 days?

Kon-Tiki ended its 6,900 km drift by running aground in the Tuamotus; Heyerdahl built it to show that people from South America could have reached the islands long before Columbus.

Which peak in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales is the highest on the Australian mainland?

Mount Kosciuszko was named in 1840 by the Polish explorer Paul Strzelecki, who thought it resembled a memorial mound in Kraków raised to the general Tadeusz Kościuszko.

Which river, Australia's longest at about 2,500 km, forms the border between New South Wales and Victoria?

The Murray is fed by five of the next six longest rivers in Australia, and the state border runs along the top of its southern bank rather than down the middle of the stream.

Which northern Australian city was bombed by Japan in 1942 and flattened by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day 1974?

Darwin was attacked by the same fleet that had struck Pearl Harbor, and more bombs fell on it than in that raid; Tracy later destroyed over 70% of the city's buildings.

Which animal is a 5,614 km fence across south-eastern Australia designed to keep away from sheep flocks?

Dingo attacks were the reason for one of the longest structures in the world; it grew out of older fencing that had failed to keep rabbits out.

Which Pacific Islands drink, served from a communal bowl, is made from the ground root of a pepper plant?

Kava's scientific name, Piper methysticum, means 'intoxicating pepper'; the World Health Organization judged moderate use of the traditional water-based drink to carry an acceptably low health risk.

Which inlet near Sydney, where James Cook first landed in 1770, became British slang for exile to Australia?

Botany Bay was first called Stingrays Harbour by Cook, after the fish his crew caught there; the First Fleet anchored in it in 1788 but moved the convict settlement to Sydney Cove within days.

Where in the Bay of Islands did Māori chiefs and the British Crown first sign New Zealand's founding treaty?

Waitangi gives its name to New Zealand's national holiday on 6 February, the day when Captain William Hobson and the chiefs first signed; nine signed copies of the treaty exist in all.

Which rain-soaked fiord on New Zealand's South Island did Rudyard Kipling call the eighth Wonder of the World?

Milford Sound gets a mean 6,412 mm of rain a year, sending temporary waterfalls down its cliffs, and it was carved by a glacier that melted about 16,000 years ago.

Which limestone expanse in southern Australia carries the world's longest dead-straight stretch of railway?

The Nullarbor Plain takes its name from the Latin for 'no tree', and its railway runs without a curve for 478 km across what was once a shallow seabed.

Which island group in Micronesia is famous for stone money discs up to 3.6 metres across?

Yap islanders rarely moved the biggest stones: ownership was recorded in oral tradition, so a disc could change hands simply by everyone agreeing that it had.

Which South Australian opal-mining town is so hot that many residents live in underground homes called dugouts?

Coober Pedy is sometimes called the opal capital of the world; its dugouts stay at a constant temperature while summer days on the surface often pass 40 °C, and even some of its churches are below ground.

Which ruined city of 92 artificial islets off Pohnpei is often called the Venice of the Pacific?

Nan Madol was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty until about 1628, and its walls are stacked from huge basalt stones brought from a volcanic plug on the far side of the island.

Which pottery-making culture, named after a dig site in New Caledonia, were ancestors of the Polynesians?

Lapita got its name by accident: archaeologists digging in 1952 misheard a local word, xapeta'a, which means 'the place where one digs'.

Which remote island group in French Polynesia was the setting of Herman Melville's first book, Typee?

The Marquesas Islands are among the most remote island groups in the world; Melville lived on Nuku Hiva in 1842, and the painter Paul Gauguin is buried on neighbouring Hiva Oa.

Which vast Australian salt pan holds the lowest natural point on the continent, about 15 metres below sea level?

Lake Eyre, officially Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, filled completely only three times between 1860 and 2025; when it does, it becomes the largest lake in Australia.

What name was given to the 19th-century kidnapping of Pacific Islanders to work on Queensland sugar plantations?

Blackbirding ran in Queensland from 1863 to 1908 and relied on coercion and deception as well as kidnapping; around 15,000 of the islanders died while working there.

Which Portuguese explorer named the Pacific Ocean after leading the first European crossing of it?

Ferdinand Magellan called it the Mar Pacifico after his ships battled through storms and mutinies to reach it; he was killed in the Philippines in 1521, before the voyage was over.