60 Fun Facts About Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands lies in which region of Oceania?

About 95% of the population is Melanesian, but seven outlying islands, including Tikopia and Rennell, are culturally Polynesian.

Which Spanish navigator, sailing from Peru in 1568, was the first European to reach the islands?

He came back in 1595 to found a colony, but the settlement failed and he died there in October of that year.

The islands were named because Europeans hoped they held whose legendary biblical wealth?

Reports of Mendaña's voyage were conflated with the story of Ophir, the land that supplied the king's gold. Mendaña himself never named the group.

In which year did Solomon Islands become independent?

Independence Day is 7 July. Sir Peter Kenilorea became the first prime minister and Elizabeth II remained head of state.

Who became head of state of Solomon Islands in September 2022?

The country is a Commonwealth realm, so Charles III succeeded Elizabeth II; a Governor-General chosen by Parliament represents the King locally.

During the colonial period, which small island served as the protectorate's capital before Honiara?

Resident commissioner Charles Woodford chose it in 1896. It was one of the first places the Japanese seized in May 1942.

What was the 19th-century kidnapping of islanders for Queensland and Fiji plantations called?

Jack London wrote about the trade. Missionary pressure to stop it was one reason Britain declared a protectorate in 1893.

In which year was a British protectorate declared over the southern Solomons?

Germany held the northern islands until the Tripartite Convention of 1899 handed most of them to Britain, keeping only Buka and Bougainville.

The largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago is not part of the country. Which is it?

It is an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea. Its 1988-98 civil war sent refugees south and strained relations between the two countries.

In World War II, the Allied landings of 7 August 1942 opened which pivotal campaign in the Solomons?

The Japanese had begun building an airstrip there; the Americans finished it and named it Henderson Field.

Which US admiral said 'The coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal and Guadalcanal saved the South Pacific'?

Coastwatchers were often planters and islanders hidden on Japanese-held islands, radioing warnings of ships and aircraft heading down 'the Slot'.

After PT-109 sank in 1943, John F. Kennedy's rescue message was carved on what and paddled to safety by islanders?

Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana carried it by dugout canoe. Kennedy kept the shell on his desk in the Oval Office.

Which Japanese destroyer rammed and sank Kennedy's PT-109 in August 1943?

It was running back to Rabaul at high speed on a moonless night. Its captain later claimed he rammed the boat deliberately; his superior said he was trying to avoid it.

The tiny island where Kennedy's crew first swam ashore is now named after him. What is its local name?

It is also called Plum Pudding Island and is a 15-minute boat ride from Gizo, a popular stop for visiting divers.

What grim nickname did Allied sailors give the waters off Guadalcanal where so many ships sank in 1942-43?

Before the war it was Savo Sound. A US ship still drops a wreath there every year on the battle's anniversary.

Honiara International Airport was known during World War II by what name?

It was named for a Marine aviator killed at Midway. Whoever held it controlled the skies over the southern Solomons.

How many stars appear on the flag of Solomon Islands?

They stood for the provinces at the time; the number of provinces has since grown to nine but the stars never changed.

What is the name of the English-based creole that serves as the country's everyday lingua franca?

Only 1-2% of people speak English fluently. Bislama and Tok Pisin are its close cousins in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.

Roughly how many local languages are spoken in Solomon Islands?

Most are Austronesian, but a handful, like Bilua and Savosavo, form their own family unrelated to anything else on Earth.

Traditional shell money is made mainly in the Langa Langa Lagoon on which island?

It is made of small polished shell discs drilled and threaded on strings, and can still be bought at Honiara Central Market.

The Solomon Islands currency, which replaced Australian money at par in 1977, is the what?

It replaced the Australian dollar at par in 1977. Kina and vatu are the currencies of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

Kavachi, one of the Pacific's most active submarine volcanoes, is named after what?

Locals call it 'Kavachi's oven'. It has risen above the sea and been eroded back at least eight times since 1939, and sharks were filmed living in its crater in 2015.

Marovo, in Western Province, is the world's largest example of what?

It covers about 700 square kilometres between two extinct volcanic islands and is on UNESCO's tentative list.

East Rennell, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, surrounds which lake, the largest in the insular Pacific?

Rennell is a raised coral atoll and a Polynesian outlier. Logging threats put the site on the World Heritage in Danger list in 2013.

Blond hair among Solomon Islanders stems from a mutation in which gene, found nowhere outside Oceania?

The variant occurs in about 26% of the population and evolved independently of European blondness, which is mostly linked to MC1R and other genes.

Which Australian city gave its name to the October 2000 peace deal between Guale and Malaitan militias?

A key Guale leader, Harold Keke, refused to sign, and fighting shifted to the remote Weather Coast until the RAMSI intervention of 2003.

Which country led the RAMSI intervention force that restored order in Solomon Islands from 2003?

Operation Helpem Fren brought 2,200 police and troops from about 15 Pacific nations. The mission wound up in 2017.

In 2019 Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to which country?

A 2022 security pact followed, alarming Australia and New Zealand because it allows Beijing to send forces to help 'maintain social order'.

How many members sit in the country's single-chamber Parliament?

Members serve four-year terms and elect the prime minister, which is why no-confidence votes have toppled so many governments.

Which of these does Solomon Islands NOT have?

Two patrol boats operated by the police act as the de facto navy. Solomon Airlines and the Central Bank were both created under prime minister Solomon Mamaloni.

Which part of Honiara was largely destroyed in the 2006 riots over claims the new prime minister had bought votes?

China chartered aircraft to evacuate its citizens, and Snyder Rini resigned within days.

Elliot Ragomo's 2009 futsal world record: how quickly after kick-off did he score?

The team, the Kurukuru, dominate Oceania but were beaten 31-2 by Russia at the 2008 World Cup in Brazil.

What is the nickname of the Solomon Islands national beach soccer team?

They won the first three Oceania championships and once ranked 14th in the world, higher than any other team from the region.

Which country did Solomon Islands beat for the first time to reach the confederation's 2006 World Cup play-off?

Australia then won the play-off 7-0 away and 2-1 in Honiara, but the run remains the high point of Solomons football.

Which multi-sport event did Solomon Islands host in 2023?

China built the main stadium in Honiara, one of the most visible signs of the new relationship.

Solomon Islands had under 30,000 tourists in 2017. What annual figure did the government hope to reach by end-2025?

It is one of the least-visited countries on Earth; the pandemic year of 2020 saw only about 4,400 arrivals.

A 2004 survey found Solomon Islands has the world's second-highest diversity of what?

Only Indonesia's Raja Ampat islands scored higher. The survey counted 474 species, nine possibly new to science.

The prehensile-tailed 'monkey-tailed' lizard endemic to the archipelago holds what distinction?

Also called the monkey-tailed skink, it uses its prehensile tail to climb and, unusually for a lizard, lives in family groups.

The Pijin word 'wantok' describes what?

Literally 'one talk'. The obligation to look after wantoks shapes everything from job hiring to politics.

Which faith is followed by about 92% of Solomon Islanders?

Anglicans are the largest group at about 35%, a legacy of missionaries who began arriving in the 1850s.

In April 2003, seven members of which Anglican religious order were killed by rebel leader Harold Keke?

Six had gone to look for a brother already killed. The Anglican church commemorates them each 24 April.

The 2007 magnitude-8.1 earthquake lifted the shoreline of Ranongga island by up to how much?

The uplift exposed coral reefs to the air. The tsunami that followed killed at least 52 people.

Which explorer, wrecked on Vanikoro in 1788, vanished until traces of his expedition were found in 1826?

An English trader, Peter Dillon, spotted French items in the hands of Tikopia islanders nearly forty years later.

The 1927 killing of administrator William Bell by Kwaio warriors came as he tried to enforce what?

Basiana of the Kwaio people led the attack; a punitive raid followed and Basiana was executed.

The post-war Maasina Rule movement took its name from a word meaning what?

The British called it 'Marching Rule' and arrested most of its leaders in 1947-48 under 'Operation De-Louse'.

How many provinces make up Solomon Islands, alongside the capital territory?

Honiara is administered separately by a town council, making ten administrative areas in all.

The population of Solomon Islands is closest to which figure?

About 95% are Melanesian, and the country ranks second in the world for disaster risk according to the 2021 WorldRiskReport.

Before independence, the islands were a protectorate of which European power?

Germany briefly held the northern islands from 1886 before ceding most of them in 1900. Australia was offered the territory in the 1950s and declined.

As of 2022, what product makes up about two-thirds of the country's exports?

Logging has long run at unsustainable rates; the industry funded much of the budget in the 1990s and fed the corruption of that era.

Which of these islands is one of the country's six major islands?

The others are Choiseul, Santa Isabel, New Georgia, Makira and Guadalcanal. Tikopia, Rennell and Anuta are small Polynesian outliers.

On the national flag, a thin yellow diagonal separates a green triangle from one of what colour?

Blue for the sea, green for the land and yellow for the sun. It was adopted eight months before independence.

The earliest evidence of settlement in the Solomons, from about 30,000 BC, was found at Kilu Cave on which island?

Lower sea levels then joined Buka and Bougainville to the southern Solomons in a single 'Greater Bougainville'.

The pottery-making Lapita people reached the Solomons around 1200-800 BC from which island group?

They appear to have leap-frogged the inhabited main islands and settled the Santa Cruz group first.

Mendaña's failed 1595 colony at Gracioso Bay was on which island of the Santa Cruz group?

Poor relations with islanders and disease killed the settlement, and Mendaña himself died there.

Which remote atoll did Abel Tasman sight in 1648, the only European visit between 1606 and 1767?

Philip Carteret finally sailed past the Santa Cruz Islands and Malaita in 1767.

Which island did the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville name in 1768?

Jean-François de Surville explored the islands the following year.

Who became the first prime minister of Solomon Islands at independence in July 1978?

He led the Solomon Islands United Party and won again in 1980 and 1984.

Who held the new post of Chief Minister from 1974 and later created the Central Bank and national airline?

He dominated politics into the 1990s and pushed unsuccessfully to make the country a republic.

Levers Pacific Plantations, a Lever Brothers subsidiary, built a profitable colonial industry in which product?

Earlier traders had come for turtleshell, sea cucumbers and sandalwood.

Based at Gizo from 1898, deputy commissioner Arthur Mahaffy was tasked with suppressing what in New Georgia?

The underfunded protectorate struggled to keep order across the remote islands.