Papua New Guinea Country Info - Oceania

Description and Basic Information

Papua New Guinea with its capital Port Moresby is located in Oceania (Oceania, group of islands including the eastern half of the island of New Guinea between the Coral Sea and the South Pacific Ocean). It covers some 462,841 square kilometres (slightly larger than California) with 5,921,000 citizens. English, Hiri Motu and are languages spoken by the majority in Papua New Guinea (consider regional differences). Indonesia is a bordering country.

Papua New Guinea is an island nation in Oceania. The country can be conveniently divided into 11 regions (7 on the main island and 4 island regions). In 2009, Papua New Guinea received 125,000 visitors, but only around 20% of these declared themselves as tourists. The country offers the traveler a true paradox. With little tourist infrastructure outside the main tourist areas, getting around can be tough. Tourism is well developed and growing in a handful of locations. Beyond these, the country is 120% adventure travel and not for the inexperienced or faint of heart.

Pictures from Capital (Port Moresby)

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About Papua New Guinea

The terrain offers mostly mountains with coastal lowlands and rolling foothills. The average density of population is about 12 per km². The climate in Papua New Guinea can be described as tropical with northwest monsoon (December to March), southeast monsoon (May to October), slight seasonal temperature variation. Possible natural disasters include active volcanism or situated along the Pacific ", Ring of Fire", , the country being subject to frequent and sometimes severe earthquakes, mud slides or tsunamis.

To reach someone in Papua New Guinea dial +675 prior to a number. There are 60,000 installed telephones. And there are 900,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".pg". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 240V - 50Hz. The following list are the 20 regions/states in Papua New Guinea we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Papua New Guinean population grew at a rate of 2.03% (or by 123,292 citizens). With 40,147 deaths and 163,439 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 2.03%. 0 persons more in total immigrated to the country than emmigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Papua New Guinea: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.