Articles in Australia and Pacific
Populating the Pilbara—And the Controversial Phenomenon of Gina Rinehart
As the previous post noted, the major urban areas of Australia have recently posted significant population gains whereas most rural areas have registered demographic declines. The situation is a bit different, however, in Western Australia, the world’s second largest (by territory) “stateoid” (or first-order political division of a sovereign state). To be sure, the outskirts of greater Perth have seen …
Australia’s Empty Countryside—and the Melbourne/Sydney Rivalry
Australia is well known for its low population density. With roughly 23 million people living in 2.9 million sq mi (7.7 million sq km) of land, it ranks sixth from bottom in this regard, following Mongolia, Namibia, Iceland, Suriname, and Mauritania. Australia is also known for its high degree of urbanization, although its 89.2 percent official urbanization figure places only …
Australia’s Climatic Anomalies
(Having just returned from a family trip to Australia, I feel compelled to muse over a few Australian topics over the next few days….).
In the various indices of the world’s “most livable cities,” those of Australia generally rank quite high. In the Economist Intelligence Unit‘s (EIU) most recent global liveability report, Melbourne places first, Adelaide fifth, Sydney seventh, and Perth …
Separatism in French Polynesia
As previously noted on GeoCurrents, the political entities that comprise the French Republic exhibit a multitude of different administrative designations with varying legal responsibilities. One such possession is French Polynesia, which was officially designated an “overseas country” in 2004, though legally its status is indistinguishable from that of France’s other overseas collectivities.
Australia’s “Devil Ark” Captive Breeding Program
The Tasmanian devil, a wolverine-like marsupial carnivore, has been reintroduced to mainland Australia, where it has been extinct for hundreds of years. The formidable animals are not roaming free in the outback, however, but are rather confined to the “Devil Ark” in a free-range captive breeding project: “Devils are kept in densely vegetated pens of between two and three football fields in size enclosed by a climb and burrow-proof fence, and their pen mates are chosen by experts from a genetic ‘stud book’ to optimise breeding.”
Oceania GeoQuiz Answers
Yesterday’s GeoNote introduced this Oceania GeoQuiz. This page shows the answers in bold, so if you would like to first take the quiz without seeing the answers, see yesterday’s post before scrolling down.
1. The area marked A:
a. is a major agricultural region, marked by large sugar and cotton plantations in the north and intensive sheep and cattle ranching in the …
GeoQuiz on Oceania
1. The area marked A:
a. is a major agricultural region, marked by large sugar and cotton plantations in the north and intensive sheep and cattle ranching in the south.
b. is an Australian territory rather than state (owing largely to its small population) that has a relatively high proportion of Aborigines in its population.
c. is an Australian state characterized, like the …
Jervis Bay: Australia’s Hidden Territory
I had always thought that Australia proper* contained six states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania) and two territories (the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory [ACT] around Canberra). In actuality, it contains three territories. Missing from the standard list is the Jervis Bay Territory, a small coastal peninsula (67 km2 [26 sq mi]) located 150 km (93 mi) …
The Pilbara to Populate?
The Pilbara is a vast, sparsely settled region in northwestern Australia noted for its gargantuan reserves of iron-ore and other minerals. Covering 193,823 sq mi (502,000 km2), the Pilbara is substantially larger than California, yet it has fewer than 50,000 permanent inhabitants.
La Niña Floods and Droughts
La Nina conditions have recently brought unusual weather conditions to much of the world. In the Southern Hemisphere, large areas of Australia have been hit by torrential rain…
Apologies for Cannibalism on Fiji
As mentioned the other day, Melanesia has long had a negative reputation in the Western cultural imagination, quite in contrast to its neighboring Pacific region of Polynesia. In the 1800s and early 1900s, disparagement of Melanesia typically focused on cultural practices deemed savage, especially cannibalism. Cannibalism was noted in some parts of Polynesia, particularly Samoa
Territorial Disputes and Cultural Accommodations in Vanuatu
Melanesia, as we have seen, is culturally varied. Global linguistic diversity probably reaches its extreme in the highlands of New Guinea, but Vanuatu contends for the title. Its 243,000 people speak 113 indigenous languages. According to the Wikipedia, its “density of languages, per capita, is the highest of any nation in the world, with an
Cultural Disparity and Political Solidarity in the Melanesian Island World
The islands of the southwestern Pacific are conventionally divided into Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, based on the writings of the French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville from the 1830s. The etymology is Greek, with the base word nesos — hence “nesia” — meaning island, while “mela-,” micro-,” and “poly-” denote black, small, and many
Ethnic Strife and Cultural Solidarity in Melanesia
In trying to separate from Papua New Guinea, the people of Bougainville have sought full independence rather than union with Solomon Islands,* the country that encompasses the rest of the archipelago in which their island is located. The sentiment is not difficult to understand; Solomon Islands is a poor and unstable state beset with
Election Controversies and Ethnic Complexities on the Not-So-Tiny Island of Bougainville
In June 2010, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea (PNG) voted out three quarters of its parliamentary representatives along with its president. Whereas the outgoing leader was a former revolutionary committed to independence, the newly elected chief executive favors continuing ties with PNG. Most sources, however, do not see a loss of
Terranova: The Black Petaltail - A Novel
Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (5th Edition)
Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World (3rd Edition)
