Daru Island is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the

Western Province Western Province or West Province may refer to: * Western Province, Cameroon *Western Province, Rwanda *Western Province (Kenya) *Western Province (Papua New Guinea) *Western Province (Solomon Islands) *Western Province, Sri Lanka *Western Provin ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. It is one of the

Torres Strait Islands The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait, a waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea. They span an area of , but their total land ...

. The eponymous town on the island is the capital of the province, and houses the vast majority of the island's population of 20,524 (2009). Daru Island is elliptical in shape, with dimensions of 5.0 by 3.7 kilometers, an area of 14.7 km², and an elevation of up to 27 m. The island is separated from the mainland in the north, specifically the mouth of

Oriomo River The Oriomo River is located in southern Papua New Guinea. Originating on the Oriomo Plateau, it enters the sea near the town of Daru. See also *Oriomo-Bituri Rural LLG *Oriomo languages *Oriomo Plateau The Oriomo Plateau is a plateau in Wester ...

, by the 3.5 km wide Daru Roads. The shortest distance to the larger Bristow Island (also called Bobo Island) in the south is 1.3 km. Daru Island is one of the few

that do not belong to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, but to

. It is also the most highly populated of the Torres Strait Islands, although scarcely any original

Torres Strait Islanders Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped ...

live on the island. The main industry on the island is

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

although few fisheries are locally owned. The island has an international airport which is mainly used by Australian aircraft chartered by mining companies for customs clearance or to pick up jet fuel. Commercial flights service Daru Airport four days per week.

History

The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of

Luís Vaez de Torres Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

on 5 September 1606. The island's airport was used to refuel Allied aircraft during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

s operated from nearby waters. In 2020 the PNG Government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company which intends to build a "comprehensive multi-functional fishery industrial park" on the island. Another Chinese company, WYW Holding Limited, reportedly proposed building a city to be called "New Daru City" on the island in a letter to the PNG Government in April 2020. However, the Government has stated that it has not considered such a proposal, and has no plans to designate the island a 'business, commercial and industrial zone' as the letter proposed.

References

Islands of Papua New Guinea Torres Strait Islands Western Province (Papua New Guinea) {{WesternProvincePNG-geo-stub