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Pacific Islands States History ssrsi.org | Spas in Asia and the South Pacific Islands getawayspas.com | Pacific Specalists - Pacific Eye and Ear - Pacific Head and Neck -... pacificspecialists.com |
This article is about the Pacific Islands. For the indigenous peoples, see Pacific Islander. The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Those islands lying south of the tropic of Cancer are traditionally grouped into three divisions: Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
[edit] OceaniaPacific islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania [1] (although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago),
The region's islands are classified into two groups, high islands and low islands. Volcanoes form high islands, which generally can support more people and have a more fertile soil. Low islands are reefs or atolls, and are relatively small and infertile. Melanesia, the most populous of the three regions, contains mainly high islands, while most of Micronesia and Polynesia are low islands. In addition, there are many other islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean that are not considered part of Oceania. These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador; the Aleutian Islands in Alaska; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands; Taiwan; the Philippines; the South China Sea Islands; most of the islands of Indonesia; and the island nation of Japan, which includes the Ryukyu Islands. The inhabitants of these islands are not considered to be Pacific Islanders and are usually identified with their nearest continent. [edit] List of islandsThis is a list of many of the major Pacific islands, organized by archipelago or political unit. In order to keep this list of moderate size, links are given to more complete lists for countries with large numbers of small or uninhabited islands.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
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