Papua New Guinea: The Eastern Half of New Guinea — And More

Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea — the world's second-largest island after Greenland. The western half belongs to Indonesia (Papua and West Papua provinces). But the country's territory extends far beyond the mainland.

To the north and east lie numerous islands, the largest being:

• New Britain — home to Rabaul, a city built inside a volcanic caldera
• New Ireland — long, narrow, and culturally distinct
• Bougainville — geographically part of the Solomon Islands chain, politically autonomous within PNG

Plus hundreds of smaller islands and atolls scattered across the Bismarck Sea, Solomon Sea, and Pacific Ocean. This archipelagic geography fuels extraordinary cultural diversity: over 800 languages — more than any other nation — spoken by communities often isolated by mountains, jungles, or sea.

From highland tribal villages to coastal trading ports, Papua New Guinea is not just "on an island" — it's a nation of islands, each with its own world.