Papua New Guinea

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

Papua New Guinea is a nation in Oceania, made up of a group of islands between the Coral Sea and the South Pacific Ocean, east of Indonesia. The largest land mass is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea.

It is part of the Commonwealth of Nations. Port Moresby is the capital.

While the area is rich in natural resources, it severely lacks infrastructure; 75% of the population subsist on agriculture. Australia supplied more than $300 million in aid in FY07/08, which accounts for nearly 20% of the national budget; relations with Australia are still challenging. A consortium led by a major American oil company hopes to begin the commercialization of the country's estimated 637 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves through the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facility by 2010. The project has the potential to double the GDP of Papua New Guinea.

It has the the highest HIV/AIDS rate in all of East Asia and the Pacific, and chronic law and order and land tenure issues.

Second World War

Many areas within its boundaries were important in the Second World War, including the Bismarck Sea, Admiralty Islands including Manaus Island, Bougainville, Guadalcanal, Rabaul, and the Solomon Sea.