Demographics of Oceania

Oceania
An orthographic projection of geopolitical Oceania.
Geopolitical Oceania
Area8,525,989 km2 (3,291,903 sq mi)
Population44,491,724 (2021, 6th)
Population density4.19/km2 (10.9/sq mi)
DemonymOceanian
Countries
Associated (2) (list)
Dependencies
External (21) (list)
Internal (4) (list)
Languages
29
Time zonesUTC+14 (Kiribati) to UTC-11 (American Samoa and Niue) (West to East)
Largest cities

Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean.[1] Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania vary, with it being defined in various ways, often geopolitically or geographically. In the geopolitical conception used by the United Nations, International Olympic Committee, and many atlases, the Oceanic region includes Australia and the nations of the Pacific from Papua New Guinea east, but not the Malay Archipelago or Indonesian New Guinea.[2][3][4] The term is sometimes used more specifically to denote Australasia as a geographic continent,[5][6] or biogeographically as a synonym for either the Australasian realm (Wallacea and Australasia) or the Oceanian realm (Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia apart either from New Zealand[7] or from mainland New Guinea[8]).

Although Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands belong to the Commonwealth of Australia and are inhabited, they are nearer Indonesia than the Australian mainland, and are commonly associated with Asia instead of Oceania.

  1. ^ For a history of the term, see Douglas & Ballard (2008) Foreign bodies: Oceania and the science of race 1750–1940
  2. ^ "United Nations Statistics Division – Countries of Oceania". Millenniumindicators.un.org. Archived from the original on 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
  3. ^ Atlas of Canada Web Master (2004-08-17). "The Atlas of Canada – The World – Continents". Atlas.nrcan.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2012-11-04. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
  4. ^ Current IOC members Archived 2009-10-02 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ "Encarta Mexico "Oceanía"". Mx.encarta.msn.com. Archived from the original on 2009-03-17. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
  6. ^ Lewis, Martin W.; Kären E. Wigen (1997). The Myth of Continents: a Critique of Metageography. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 32. ISBN 0-520-20742-4. ISBN 0-520-20743-2. Interestingly enough, the answer [from a scholar who sought to calculate the number of continents] conformed almost precisely to the conventional list: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania (Australia plus New Zealand), Africa, and Antarctica.
  7. ^ Udvardy. 1975. A classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world
  8. ^ Steadman. 2006. Extinction & biogeography of tropical Pacific birds