Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (officially Independent State of Papua New Guinea) is a country in Melanesia, with its capital at Port Moresby, and is home to roughly 10.6M people.
Its official languages are English, Hiri Motu, Tok Pisin; the currency in circulation is Papua New Guinean kina (K); people from here are called Papua New Guinean.
- »More languages are spoken here than in any other country, over 800.
- »Much of the interior remained unknown to outsiders until the 20th century.
Its territory comes in pieces: one mainland carrying 86% of the area, plus three further landmasses large enough to show up at map scale.
Papua New Guinea has exactly one neighbour: Indonesia to the west.
Port Moresby is unusual among capitals in having no road connection to most of the country, because the interior mountains make road building impractical.
463,946 km² (179,130 sq mi), 54th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Cameroon.
Population 10,576,502, 92nd of 198 on file. That averages 23 per km² (59 per sq mi).
Designed by a schoolgirl, Susan Karike, aged 15, who won a national competition in 1971. The bird-of-paradise and the Southern Cross sit on red and black, colours already common in local art.