New Guinea

New Guinea encompasses an area of some 785,000 square kilometres. After Greenland it is the second largest island on this planet. New Guinea lies north of Australia in the western Pacific Ocean.

The western portion, West-Papua, was annexed in 1963 by Indonesia. The eastern part of the island is, since 1975, a part of the independent State of Papua New Guinea. New Guinea is home to the largest tropical forest in Australasia, has the richest coral reefs in the world, and the greatest biodiversity outside of the Amazon region of South America. Over one thousand indigenous language groups are present on the island. Further information about New Guinea, West-Papua and Papua New Guinea, may be found on the Wikipedia website.

Here you will find a page with some interesting population statistics of growth of PNG towns and cities.

The accompanying map shows the geographic location of New Guinea east of Southeast Asia (downloading of the map may take a moment). You may use your mouse to shift the map or the "+" key to zoom in on a portion of the map.