Papua New Guinea is the second country in Oceania I’m going to summarize. It is the eastern part of New Guinea, an island shared with Indonesia, and it also includes several smaller islands off the east coast of New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most diverse countries. The population is just below 6 million people, and there are over 850 different languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. This is one of the few countries where Tok Pisin is an official language, which is a created language based on English during the colonization period. Papua New Guinea is also one of the least explored countries in the world, and a lot of undiscovered plants and animals are thought to live in the deeper parts.
The geography of Papua New Guinea is also very diverse, ranging from highlands and extremely rugged areas at the spine of mountains through the New Guinea island, to dense rainforests in the lowlands and coast areas. The 20 provinces are the main administrative parts of the country, and each province has its own provincial government, although they are only branches of the national government.
The capital of Papua New Guinea is Port Moresby and the country only gained independence in 1975, from Australia. It is still a part of the Commonwealth.