Author: thedigitalphilatelist

Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a sovereign state in Oceania that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. The…

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New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium (Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides) and named for the Hebrides Scottish archipelago, was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu. Native people had inhabited the islands for three thousand years before the first Europeans arrived in…

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Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu, is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean and part of Melanesia. Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island,…

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The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first declared over the southern Solomons in 1893, when Captain Gibson R.N declared the southern islands a British protectorate.  The formalities in its establishment were carried out by officers of the Royal Navy, who hoisted the British flag and read Proclamations on twenty-one islands.…

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Solomon Islands is a sovereign state consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania. The country takes its name from the Solomon Islands archipelago, which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the North Solomon Islands (a part of Papua New Guinea), but excludes…

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Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from New Guinea island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Tonga. Most of the region is in the Southern Hemisphere, with only a few small northwestern islands of Western New Guinea lying in the Northern Hemisphere. The…

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Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands. The majority of Fiji’s islands formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago. Some geothermal activity still occurs…

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The Principality of Hutt River, often referred to by its former name, the Hutt River Province, was an unrecognised micronation in Australia. The micronation was founded on 21 April 1970 when Leonard Casley declared his farm to be an independent country, the Hutt River Province. He attempted to secede from…

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Western Australia is the largest state of Australia. The first inhabitants of Australia arrived from the north about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. Over thousands of years they eventually spread across the whole landmass. These Indigenous Australians were long established throughout Western Australia by the time European explorers began to…

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South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. The land which now forms the state of South Australia was claimed for Britain in 1788 as part of the colony of New South Wales. Although the new colony included almost two-thirds of the continent, early settlements were…

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