Oceania
What does the term Oceania refer to?
What is the land area of Oceania?
What are the four parts of Oceania?
What is the population of Oceania?
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Oceania, collective name for the islands found throughout most of the Pacific Ocean. The term, in its widest sense, embraces the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas. A more common definition excludes the Ryukyu, Kuril, and Aleutian islands and the Japan archipelago. The most popular usage delimits Oceania further by excluding Indonesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines, because the peoples and cultures of those islands are more closely related historically to the Asian mainland. Oceania, in its most restricted meaning, consists of more than 10,000 islands, with a total land area (excluding Australia but including Papua New Guinea and New Zealand) of approximately 317,700 square miles (822,800 square km).
Oceania has traditionally been divided into four parts: Australasia (Australia and New Zealand), Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
Human migration to the Pacific Islands (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia) may have begun more than 40,000 years ago, while the first humans reached Australia perhaps as early as 65,000 to 80,000 years ago. Although disagreeing on details, scholars have generally supported theories that identify Southeast Asian origins for the region’s Indigenous peoples. Europeans began arriving in Oceania in the early 16th century. The arts of the region are discussed in several articles: see Oceanic art and architecture, Oceanic music and dance, and Oceanic literature. Pop. (2025 est.) including Australia, 52,284,000.
