Oceania Junior Beach Handball Championship

Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million as of 2021. When compared with (and sometimes described as being one of) the continents, the region of Oceania is the smallest in land area and the second least populated after Antarctica. Its major population centres are Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland, Adelaide, Honolulu, and Christchurch.

Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia, French Polynesia, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, which rank high in quality of life and Human Development Index, to the much less developed economies of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western New Guinea, while also including medium-sized economies of Pacific islands such as Fiji, Palau, and Tonga. The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, and the largest city is Sydney. Puncak Jaya in Highland Papua, Indonesia is the highest peak in Oceania at .

The first settlers of Australia, New Guinea, and the large islands just to the east arrived more than 60,000 years ago. Oceania was first explored by Europeans from the 16th century onward. Portuguese explorers, between 1512 and 1526, reached the Tanimbar Islands, some of the Caroline Islands and west Papua New Guinea. On his first voyage in the 18th century, James Cook, who later arrived at the highly developed Hawaiian Islands, went to Tahiti and followed the east coast of Australia for the first time.

The arrival of European settlers in subsequent centuries resulted in a significant alteration in the social and political landscape of Oceania. The Pacific theatre saw major action during the Second World War, mainly between Allied powers the United States, Philippines (a US Commonwealth at the time) and Australia, and Axis power Japan. The rock art of Aboriginal Australians is the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. Most Oceanian countries are multi-party representative parliamentary democracies, with tourism being a large source of income for the Pacific Islands nations.

Definitions and extent

Characteristics

Definitions of Oceania vary. The broadest definition of Oceania encompasses the many islands between mainland Asia and the Americas; The island nation of Australia is the only piece of land in the area which is large enough to typically be considered a continent. The culture of the people who lived on these islands was often distinct from that of Asia and pre-Columbian America, hence a lack of association with either. Before Europeans arrived in the area, the sea shielded Australia and south central Pacific islands from cultural influences that spread through large continental landmasses and adjacent islands. The islands of the Malay archipelago, north of Australia, mainly lie on the continental shelf of Asia, and their inhabitants had more exposure to mainland Asian culture as a result of this closer proximity. The island of Taiwan similarly lies on the continental shelf of Asia, with their inhabitants historically having had exchange with mainland Asia.

The geographer Conrad Malte-Brun coined the French expression ''Terres océaniques'' (Oceanic lands) 1804, then in 1814 another French cartographer, , coined from this expression the shorter "Océanie" putting it on a map, « ''Océanie, ou cinquième partie du monde, comprenant l'archipel d'Asie, l'Australasie et la Polynésie (ou le continent de la Nouvelle Hollande et les îles du Grand Océan)'' ». ''Océanie'' derives from the Latin word , and this from the Greek word (''ōkeanós''), "ocean". The term ''Oceania'' is used because, unlike the other continental groupings, it is the ocean that links the parts of the region together. John Eperjesi's 2005 book ''The Imperialist Imaginary: Visions of Asia and the Pacific in American Culture'' says that it has "been used by western cartographers since the mid-nineteenth century to give order to the complexities of the Pacific area." The ''Handbook of Religion'' (2014) states that it was "introduced by westerners" and in the 19th century helped describe "a sociopolitical reality of the islands of the southwest Pacific and Australia." In the 19th century, many geographers divided up Oceania into mostly racially based subdivisions; ''Australasia'', ''Malaysia'' (encompassing the Malay archipelago), ''Melanesia'', ''Micronesia'' and ''Polynesia''. The 2011 book ''Maritime Adaptations of the Pacific'', by Richard W. Casteel and Jean-Claude Passeron, states that, "for the purpose of anthropology, Oceania has long been a continent like Africa, Asia and America." Scottish geographer John Bartholomew wrote in 1873 that, "the New World consists of North America, and the peninsula of South America attached to it. These divisions regenerally themselves spoken as continents, and to them has been added another, embracing the large island of Australia and numerous others in the acificOcean, under the name of Oceania. There are thus six great divisions of the earth — Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Oceania." American author Samuel Griswold Goodrich wrote in his 1854 book ''History of All Nations'' that, "geographers have agreed to consider the island world of the Pacific Ocean as a third continent, under the name Oceania." In this book the other two continents were categorized as being the New World (consisting of North America and South America) and the Old World (consisting of Africa, Asia and Europe). One study from 1884 describes Oceania as a continent, stating that “South of the continent of Asia is found a large island nearly as large as the continent of Europe. This, with a great number of small islands in the neighbourhood, is regarded as forming a fourth continent known as Oceania.” Other studies from the early Twentieth Century also described Oceania as a continent. In his 1879 book ''Australasia'', British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon" and that "Australia forms its central and most important feature." He did not explicitly label Oceania a continent in the book, but did note that it was one of the six major divisions of the world. ''The Oxford Handbook of World History'' (2011) describes the areas encompassed in Oceania as being "afterthoughts in world history texts, lumped together and included at the end of global surveys as areas largely marginal to the main events of world history".

In non- English speaking countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland or Venezuela, Oceania is treated as a continent in the sense that it is "one of the parts of the world", and Australia is only seen as an island nation. In other countries, including Kazakhstan, Norway, Poland and Russia, Australia and Eurasia are thought of as continents, while Asia, Europe and Oceania are regarded as "parts of the world". Prior to the 1950s, before the popularization of the theory of plate tectonics, Antarctica, Australia and Greenland were sometimes described as island continents, but none were usually taught as one of the world's continents in English-speaking countries.: "...the 1950s... was also the period when... Oceania as a "great division" was replaced by Australia as a continent along with a series of isolated and continentally attached islands. [Footnote 78: When Southeast Asia was conceptualised as a world region during World War II..., Indonesia and the Philippines were perforce added to Asia, which reduced the extent of Oceania, leading to a reconceptualisation of Australia as a continent in its own right. This manoeuvre is apparent in postwar atlases]" In her 1961 book ''The United States and the Southwest Pacific'', American author C. Hartley Grattan, Clinton Hartley Grattan commented that, "the use of the word Oceania to cover Australia, New Zealand, and the acificislands now has a slightly old-fashioned flavor." Australia is a founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum in 1971, and at times has been interpreted as the largest Pacific island. For example, Tony deBrum, Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands, stated in 2014, "not only s Australiaour big brother down south, Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and Australia is a Pacific island, a big island, but a Pacific island." Some geographers group the Australian tectonic plate with others in the Pacific to form a geological continent. ''National Geographic'' states that the term Oceania "establishes the Pacific Ocean as the defining characteristic of the continent." Others have labelled it as the "liquid continent". The Pacific Ocean itself has been labelled as a "continent of islands", and contains approximately 25,000, which is more than all the other major oceans combined. In a 1991 article for the Submerged Resources Center, American archeologist Toni L. Carrell wrote, "the immensity of and great distances within the Pacific Basin often make it difficult to conceptualize the basin as a single earth feature." She adds that most islands in the Pacific are "close enough together to be easily clustered into archipelagos or groups. The notable exceptions, those islands more than 400 statute miles from any other, are: Clipperton Island, Easter Island, Salas y Gómez, Johnston Atoll, Norfolk Island, Marcus Island and Parece Vela." In a 1947 article on the Pacific area for the ''Expedition'' journal, author D. Sutherland Davidson observed, "islands are not equally distributed throughout this vast expanse of water. The majority, including the continent of Australia and the very large islands, are found in the western third of the Pacific. Most of the remainder, generally in clusters or chains, fall within the central third, whereas virtually none is present in the eastern or American third. With the important exceptions of Tasmania and the southern portions of New Zealand and Australia, and the Aleutian and Japanese islands, the Pacific islands are confined to tropical latitudes." In his 2013 book ''Reptiles and Amphibians of the Pacific Islands: A Comprehensive Guide'', American herpetologist George R. Zug wrote, "what is and is not part of the Pacific—particularly the western Pacific—is variously delimited. Some authorities have the Pacific and the Indian Oceans abutting the western edge of the Lesser and Greater Sunda Islands. Other authorities set the western edge at the eastern edge of this Sundan platform. A majority viewpoint accepts the landmasses of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, New Guinea, and eastern Australia, which face the open waters of the Pacific, as its western edge." He adds that, "a broad array of regions, islands, island groups, and nations are encompassed within the Pacific." Oceania's subregions of Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia cover two major plates; the Australian Plate (also known as the Indo-Australian Plate) and the Pacific Plate, in addition to two minor plates; the Nazca Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. The Australian Plate includes Australia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and parts of New Zealand. The Pacific Plate covers the Solomon Islands and parts of New Zealand, as well as Micronesia (excluding the westernmost islands near the Philippine Sea Plate) and Polynesia (excluding Easter Island). The Nazca Plate, which includes Easter Island, neighbors the South American Plate, and is still considered to be a separate tectonic plate, despite only containing a handful of islands.

Boundaries

Islands at the geographic extremes of Oceania are generally considered to be the Bonin Islands, a politically integral part of Japan; Hawaii, a state of the United States; Clipperton Island, a possession of France; the Juan Fernández Islands, belonging to Chile; and Macquarie Island, belonging to Australia.

United Nations interpretation

The United Nations (UN) has used its own geopolitical definition of Oceania since its foundation in 1947, which utilizes four of the five subregions from the 19th century; Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. This definition consists of discrete political entities, and so excludes the Bonin Islands, Hawaii, Clipperton Island and the Juan Fernández Islands, along with Easter Island — which was annexed by Chile in 1888. It is used in statistical reports, by the International Olympic Committee, and by many atlases. The UN categorizes Oceania, and by extension the Pacific area, as one of the major continental divisions of the world, along with Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Their definition includes American Samoa, Australia and their external territories, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and the United States Minor Outlying Islands ( Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Wake Island). The original UN definition of Oceania from 1947 included these same countries and semi-independent territories, which were mostly still colonies at that point. Hawaii had not yet become a U.S. state in 1947, and as such was part of the original UN definition of Oceania. The island states of Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan, all located within the bounds of the Pacific, are excluded from the UN definition. The nation of Malaysia, which is located in both mainland Asia and the Pacific, is also excluded. Further excluded are East Timor and Indonesian New Guinea/Western New Guinea, areas which are biogeographically or geologically associated with the Australian landmass. The World Factbook also categorizes Oceania as one of the major continental divisions of the world, but the name "Australia and Oceania" is used. Their definition does not include all of Australia's external territories, but is otherwise the same as the UN's definition, and is also used for statistical purposes. In a 2008 article for the ''India Quarterly'' journal titled ''Oceania and Security: A Perspective from New Zealand'', author Peter Cozens stated, "the region of Oceania is characterised by vast distances across the sea between continental land masses ..It is difficult to be precise about the term Oceania and its exact delimitation", adding that "the principal regional political grouping is contained within the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) - the 16 states making up the Forum are: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu - in general terms this is the area referred to as Oceania by the United Nations and similar agencies." The Pacific Islands Forum expanded during the early 2010s, and areas that were already included in the UN definition of Oceania, such as French Polynesia, gained membership.

Early interpretations

French writer Gustave d'Eichthal remarked in 1844 that, "the boundaries of Oceania are in reality those of the great ocean itself." Conrad Malte-Brun in 1824 defined Oceania as covering Australia, New Zealand, the Malay archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. American lexicographer Joseph Emerson Worcester wrote in 1840 that Oceania is "a term applied to a vast number of islands which are widely dispersed in the Pacific Ocean ..they are considered as forming a fifth grand division of the world." He also viewed Oceania as covering Australia, New Zealand, the Malay archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. In 1887, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland referred to Australia as the area's westernmost land, while in 1870, British Reverend Alexander Mackay identified the Bonin Islands as its northernmost point, and Macquarie Island as its southernmost point. The Bonin Islands at that time were a possession of Britain; Macquarie Island, to the south of Tasmania, is a subantarctic island in the Pacific. It was politically associated with Australia and Tasmania by 1870.

Alfred Russel Wallace believed in 1879 that Oceania extended to the Aleutian Islands, which are among the northernmost islands of the Pacific. The islands, now politically associated with Alaska, have historically had inhabitants that were related to Indigenous Americans, in addition to having non-tropical biogeography similar to that of Alaska and Siberia. Wallace insisted while the surface area of this wide definition was greater than that of Asia and Europe combined, the land area was only a little greater than that of Europe. American geographer Sophia S. Cornell claimed that the Aleutian Islands were not part of Oceania in 1857. She stated that Oceania was divided up into three groups; Australasia (which included Australia, New Zealand and the Melanesian islands), Polynesia (which included both the Polynesian and Micronesian islands in her definition) and Malaysia (which included all present-day countries within the Malay archipelago such as Indonesia and the Philippines, not just the country of Malaysia). Aside from mainland Australia, areas that she identified as of high importance were Borneo, Hawaii, Indonesia's Java and Sumatra, New Guinea, New Zealand, the Philippines, French Polynesia's Society Islands, Tasmania, and Tonga.

American geographer Jesse Olney's 1845 book ''A Practical System of Modern Geography'' stated that it "comprises the numerous isles of the Pacific, lying south east of Asia." Olney divided up Oceania into three groups; Australasia (which included Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand), Malaysia and Polynesia (which included the combined islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia in his definition). Publication ''Missionary Review of the World'' claimed in 1895 that Oceania was divided up into five groups; Australasia, Malaysia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. It did not consider Hawaii to be part of Polynesia, due to its geographic isolation, commenting that Oceania also included, "isolated groups and islands, such as the Hawaiian and Galápagos." Rand McNally & Company, an American publisher of maps and atlases, claimed in 1892 that, "Oceania comprises the large island of Australia and the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean" and also that the islands of the Malay archipelago "should be grouped in with Asia." British linguist Robert Needham Cust argued in 1887 that the Malay archipelago should be excluded since it had participated in Asian civilization. Cust considered Oceania's four subregions to be Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. New Zealand were categorized by him as being in Polynesia; and the only country in his definition of Australasia was Australia. His definition of Polynesia included both Easter Island and Hawaii, which had not yet been annexed by either Chile or the United States.

The '' Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' stated in 1892 that Australia was a large island within Oceania rather than a small continent. It additionally commented, "it is certainly not necessary to consider the Hawaiian Islands and Australia as being in the same part of the world, it is however permissible to unite in one group all the islands which are scattered over the great ocean. It should be remarked that if we take the Malay archipelago away from Oceania, as do generally the German geographers, the insular world contained in the great ocean is cut in two, and the least populated of the five parts of the world is diminished in order to increase the number of inhabitants of the most densely populated continent." Regarding Australia and the Pacific, ''Chambers's New Handy Volume American Encyclopædia'' observed in 1885 that, "the whole region has sometimes been called Oceania, and sometimes Australasia—generally, however, in modern times, to the exclusion of the islands in the alayarchipelago, to which certain writers have given the name of Malaysia." It added there was controversy over the exact limits of Oceania, saying that, "scarcely any two geographers appear to be quite agreed upon the subject". British physician and ethnologist James Cowles Prichard claimed in 1847 that the Aleutian Islands and the Kuril Islands form "the northern boundary of this fifth region of the world, and with the coasts of Asia and America completing its literal termination." However, he wrote that these islands "are not usually reckoned as belonging to it, because they are known to be inhabited by races of people who came immediately from the adjacent continents and are unconnected with those tribes of the human race who peopled the remote islands of this great ocean." He added that Hawaii was the most northerly area to be inhabited by races associated with Oceania.

The 1926 book ''Modern World History, 1776-1926: A Survey of the Origins and Development of Contemporary Civilization'', by Alexander Clarence Flick, considered Oceania to include all islands in the Pacific, and associated the term with the Malay archipelago, the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, the Aleutian Islands, Japan's Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and the Kuril Islands (currently administered by Russia, but which were then partly split between Japan and Russia). He also included in his definition Sakhalin, an island which is geologically part of the Japanese archipelago, but which has been administered by Russia since World War II. Australia and New Zealand were grouped together by Flick as Australasia, and included as being in the same area of the world as the islands of Oceania. Flick estimated this definition of Oceania had a population of 70,000,000, and commented that, "brown and yellow races constitute the vast majority" and that the minority of whites were mainly "owners and rulers". He added, "through trade relations, the work of missionaries and teachers, and political control, western civilization is slowly penetrating these out of the way places either directly, or indirectly through Europeanized powers like Japan." Hutton Webster's 1919 book ''Medieval and Modern History '' also considered Oceania to encompass all islands in the Pacific, stating that, "the term Oceania, or Oceanica, in its widest sense applies to all the Pacific Islands." Webster broke Oceania up into two subdivisions; the continental group, which included Australia, the Japanese archipelago, the Malay archipelago and Taiwan, and the oceanic group, which included New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. In his 1846 book ''A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer'', author Thomas Baldwin wrote that Oceania includes Australia and Pacific islands which "are considered, from their proximity, not to belong to the continents of Asia or America." He defined Oceania as not including Japan or Taiwan, and noted that "its limits are somewhat indefinite."

Charles Marion Tyler's 1885 book ''The Island World of the Pacific Ocean'' considered Oceania to ethnographically encompass Australia, New Zealand, the Malay archipelago and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. However, Tyler included other Pacific islands in his book as well, such as the Aleutian Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Kuril Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, California's Channel Islands and Farallon Islands, Canada's Vancouver Island and Queen Charlotte Islands (now known as Haida Gwaii), Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, Mexico's Guadalupe Island, Revillagigedo Islands and Tres Marías Islands, and Peru's Chincha Islands. He additionally profiled the Anson archipelago, which during the 19th century was a designation for a widely scattered group of purported islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii. The Anson archipelago included phantom islands such as Ganges Island and Los Jardines which were proven to not exist, as well as real islands such as Marcus Island and Wake Island. Tyler described Australia as "the leviathan of the island groups of the world", and stated that the Juan Fernández Islands "will always retain a marked prominence in island histories, being at one time the home of that celebrated castaway Alexander Selkirk, whose life and adventures have been made so intensely interesting to youthful minds, and older ones too, for that matter, by Defoe in his wonderful book '' Robinson Crusoe''."

Historical and contemporary interpretations

In a 1972 article for the '' Music Educators Journal'' titled ''Musics of Oceania'', author Raymond F. Kennedy wrote, "many meanings have been given to the word Oceania. The most inclusive–but not always the most useful–embraces about 25,000 land areas between Asia and the Americas. A more popular and practical definition excludes Indonesia, East Malaysia (Borneo), the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and other islands closely related to the Asian mainland, as well as the Aleutians and the small island groups situated near the Americas. Thus, Oceania most commonly refers to the land areas of the South and Central Pacific." Kennedy defined Oceania as including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The U.S. Government Publishing Office's ''Area Handbook for Oceania'' from 1971 states that Australia and New Zealand are the principal large sovereignties of the area. It further states, "In its broadest definition Oceania embraces all islands and island groups of the Pacific Ocean that lie between Asia and the two American continents. In popular usage, however, the designation has a more restricted application. The islands of the North Pacific, such as the Aleutians and the Kuriles, usually are excluded. In addition, the series of sovereign island nations fringing Asia (Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, East Malaysia, the Republic of Indonesia) are not ordinarily considered to be part of the area." In 1948, American military journal ''Armed Forces Talk'' broke the islands of the Pacific up into five major subdivisions; Indonesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the non-tropical Islands. The Indonesia subdivision consisted of the islands of the Malay archipelago, while the non-tropical islands were categorized as being North Pacific islands such as Alaska's Kodiak archipelago, the Aleutian Islands, Japan, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Japan's Bonin and Ryukyu Islands are also considered to be subtropical islands, with the main Japanese archipelago being non-tropical. The journal associated the term Oceania with the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian subdivisions, but not with the Indonesian or non-tropical subdivisions. The ''Pacific Islands Handbook'' (1945), by Robert William Robson, stated that, "Pacific Islands generally are regarded as Pacific islands lying within the tropics. There are a considerable number of Pacific Islands outside the tropics. Most of them have little economic or political importance." He noted the political significance of the Aleutian Islands, which were invaded by the Japanese military in World War II, and categorized New Zealand's Antipodes Islands, Auckland Islands, Bounty Islands, Campbell Islands and Chatham Island as being non-tropical islands of the South Pacific, along with Australia's Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island (which are also considered to be subtropical islands). Other non-tropical areas below the equator, such as Macquarie Island and the southern portions of mainland Australia and New Zealand, were not included in this category.

According to the 1998 book ''Encyclopedia of Earth and Physical Sciences'', Oceania includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and more than 10,000 islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. It notes that, "the term asalso come under scrutiny by many geographers. Some experts insist that Oceania encompasses even the cold Aleutian Islands and the islands of Japan. Disagreement also exists over whether or not Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan should be included in Oceania." Taiwan and the Japanese and Malay archipelagos are often deemed as a geological extension of Asia, since they do not have oceanic geology, instead primarily being detached fragments of the Eurasian continent that were once physiologically connected. Certain Japanese islands off the main archipelago are not geologically associated with Asia. The book ''The World and Its Peoples: Australia, New Zealand, Oceania'' (1966) asserts that, "Japan, Taiwan, the Aleutian Islands, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia ndthe Pacific archipelagos bordering upon the Far East Asian mainland are excluded from Oceania", and that "all the islands lying between Australia and the Americas, including Australia, are part of Oceania." Furthermore, the book adds that Hawaii is still within Oceania, despite being politically integrated into the U.S., and that the Pacific Ocean "gives unity to the whole" since "all these varied lands emerge from or border upon the Pacific."

The 1876 book ''The Countries of the World: Volume 4'', by British scientist and explorer Robert Brown, labelled the Malay archipelago as Northwestern Oceania, but Brown still noted that these islands belonged more to the Asian continent. They are now often referred to as Maritime Southeast Asia, with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines being founding members of the ASEAN regional organization for Southeast Asia in 1967. Brown also categorized Japan and Taiwan as being in the same part of the world as the islands of Oceania, and excluded them from ''The Countries of the World: Volume 5'', which focused on Asia. However, Brown did not explicitly associate Japan or Taiwan with the term Oceania. He divided Oceania into two subregions; Eastern Oceania, which included the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and Southwestern Oceania, which included Australia and New Zealand. The Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands and the Revillagigedo Islands were identified as the easternmost areas of Oceania in the book. Brown wrote, "they lie nearest the American continent of all oceanic islands, and though rarely associated with Polynesia, and never appearing to have been inhabited by any aboriginal races, are, in many ways, remarkable and interesting." Brown went on to add, "the small islands lying off the continent, like the Queen Charlotte's in the North Pacific, the Farallones off California, and the Chinchas off Peru are — to all intents and purposes, only detached bits of the adjoining shores. But in the case of the Galápagos, at least, this is different." He also claimed that they are "often cited as illustrating the peculiar relation of such islands to continents. Mr. Darwin has, for instance, adducted them as an illustration of the fact that such islands are inhabited by plants and animals closely allied to those of the nearest mainland, without actually being the same." The Juan Fernández Islands and the neighboring Desventuradas Islands are today seen as the easternmost extension of the Indo-West Pacific biogeographic region. The islands lie on the Nazca Plate with Easter Island and the Galápagos Islands, and have a significant south central Pacific component to their marine fauna. According to scientific journal '' PLOS One'', the Humboldt Current helps create a biogeographic barrier between the marine fauna of these islands and South America. Chile's government have occasionally considered them to be within Oceania along with Easter Island. Chile's government also categorize Easter Island, the Desventuradas Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being part of a region titled Insular Chile. They further include in this region Salas y Gómez, a small uninhabited island to the east of Easter Island. ''PLOS One'' describe Insular Chile as having "cultural and ecological connections to the broader insular Pacific."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature stated in a 1986 report that they include Easter Island in their definition of Oceania "on the basis of its Polynesian and biogeographic affinities even though it is politically apart", further noting that other oceanic islands administered by Latin American countries had been included in definitions of Oceania. In 1987, ''The Journal of Australasian Cave Research'' described Oceania as being "the region from Irian Jaya (Western New Guinea, a province of New Guinea) in the west to Galápagos Islands (Equador) and Easter Island (Chile) in the east." In a 1980 report on venereal diseases in the South Pacific, the ''British Journal of Venereal Diseases'' categorized the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands as being in an eastern region of the South Pacific, along with areas such as Pitcairn Islands and French Polynesia, but noted that the Galápagos Islands were not a member of the South Pacific Commission, like other islands in the South Pacific. The South Pacific Commission is a developmental organization formed in 1947 and is currently known as the Pacific Community; its members include Australia and other Pacific Islands Forum members. In a 1947 article on the formation of the South Pacific Commission for the ''Pacific Affairs'' journal, author Roy E. James stated the organization's scope encompassed all non-self governing islands below the equator to the east of Papua New Guinea (which itself was included in the scope and then known as Dutch New Guinea). The Galápagos Islands and Chile's islands were defined by James as falling within the organization's geographical parameters. The 2007 book ''Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West'', by New Zealand Pacific scholar Ron Crocombe, defined the term "Pacific Islands" as being islands in the South Pacific Commission, and stated that such a definition "does not include Galápagos and other ceanicislands off the Pacific coast of the Americas; these were uninhabited when Europeans arrived, then integrated with a South American country and have almost no contact with other Pacific Islands." He adds, "Easter Island still participates in some Pacific Island affairs because its people are Polynesian."

Thomas Sebeok's two volume 1971 book ''Linguistics in Oceania'' defines Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands, Costa Rica's Cocos Island and Colombia's Malpelo Island (all oceanic) as making up a Spanish language segment of Oceania. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island are the only landmasses located on the Cocos Plate, which is to the north of the Nazca Plate. The book observed that a native Polynesian language was still understood on Easter Island, unlike with the other islands, which were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans and mostly being used as prisons for convicts. Additionally, the book includes Taiwan and the entire Malay archipelago as part of Oceania. While not oceanic in nature, Taiwan and Malay archipelago countries like Indonesia and the Philippines share Austronesian linguistic origins with Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, hence their inclusion in the book. The book defined Oceania's major subregions as being Australia, Indonesia (which included all areas associated with the Malay archipelago), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. In 2010, Australian historian Bronwen Douglas claimed in ''The Journal of Pacific History'' that "a strong case could be made for extending Oceania to at least Taiwan, the homeland of the Austronesian language family whose speakers colonized significant parts of the region about 6,000 years ago." For political reasons, Taiwan was a member of the Oceania Football Confederation during the 1970s and 1980s, rather than the Asian Football Confederation.

Ian Todd's 1974 book ''Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama'' also defines oceanic Latin American islands as making up a Spanish language segment of Oceania, including in this category the Desventuradas Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, Guadalupe Island, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands and Salas y Gómez. Cocos Island and Malpelo Island were not explicitly referenced in the book, and Mexico's Tres Marías Islands were not included as they are continental in nature, unlike Guadalupe Island and the Revillagigedo Islands (both situated on the Pacific Plate). Todd defined the oceanic Bonin Islands as making up a Japanese language segment of Oceania, and excluded the Ryukyu Islands and the main Japanese archipelago, which are geologically associated with Asia. Todd further included the Aleutian Islands in his definition of Oceania. The island chain borders both the Pacific Plate as well as the North American Plate, and is geologically a partially submerged western extension of the Aleutian Range on the Alaskan mainland, that stretches for another 1,600 kilometers. He did not include the Kuril Islands, which similarly border both the Eurasian Plate and the Pacific Plate, nor did he include the neighboring Kodiak archipelago, which is situated on the North American Plate. ''The Stockholm Journal of East Asian Studies'' stated in 1996 that Oceania was defined as Australia and an ensemble of various Pacific Islands, "particularly those in the central and south Pacific utnever those in the extreme north, for example the Aleutian chain." In the ''Pacific Ocean Handbook'' (1945), author Eliot Grinnell Mears wrote that "it is customary to exclude the Aleutians of the North Pacific", and that he included Australia and New Zealand in Oceania for "scientific reasons; Australia's fauna is largely continental in character, New Zealand's are clearly insular; and neither Commonwealth realm has close ties with Asia." He further added that, "the term ''Australasia'' is not relished by New Zealanders and this name is too often confused with ''Australia''." In his 2002 book ''Oceania: An Introduction to the Cultures and Identities of Pacific Islanders'', Andrew Strathern excluded Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu Islands from his definition of Oceania, but noted that the islands and their indigenous inhabitants "show many parallels with Pacific island societies."

In his 1994 book ''Familia Gekkonidae (Reptilia, Sauria). Part 1: Australia and Oceania'', German herpetologist Klaus Henle referred to the area as the Pacific region, and defined it as covering Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Henle included the Indonesian half of New Guinea, but excluded the rest of Indonesia and the Malay archipelago, as well as all Japanese islands and oceanic Latin American islands (with the exception of Easter Island). In the 2006 book ''Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds'', American paleontologist David Steadman wrote, "no place on earth is as perplexing as the 25,000 islands that make Oceania." Steadman viewed Oceania as encompassing Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia (including Easter Island). He excluded from his definition Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand, and argued that Cocos Island, the Galápagos Islands, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands and other oceanic islands nearing the Americas were not part of Oceania, due to their biogeographical affinities with that area and lack of prehistoric indigenous populations. He wrote, "modern political boundaries in Oceania may not agree with those based on geology, biogeography or ethnicity." In his 2018 book ''Regionalism in South Pacific'', Chinese author Yu Changsen wrote that some "stress a narrow vision of the Pacific as those Pacific Islands excluding Australia and even sometimes New Zealand", adding that the term Oceania "promotes a broader concept that has room for Australia and New Zealand." The 1995 book ''World Librarianship'', by Bangladeshi author A.M. Abdul Huq, defined the term 'Pacific Rim' as being "a term used to describe the outer reaches of Oceania." He claimed that it "consists of Australia as well as the Asian island groups that comprise Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines", adding that "the Aleutian Islands and coastal island groups such as the Galápagos form the American boundary of the Pacific Rim."

American marine geologist Anthony A.P. Koppers wrote in the 2009 book ''Encyclopedia of Islands'' that, "as a whole, the islands of the Pacific Region are referred to as Oceania. Inherent to their remoteness and because of the wide variety of island types, the Pacific Islands have developed unique social, biological and geological characteristics." Koppers considered Oceania to encompass all 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and included in this book the Aleutian Islands, the Galápagos Islands, the Japanese archipelago, the Kuril Islands and continental islands off the coast of the Americas such as the Channel Islands, the Farallon Islands and Vancouver Island. In the 2013 book ''The Environments of the Poor in Southeast Asia, East Asia and the Pacific'', Paul Bullen critiqued the definition of Oceania in ''Encyclopedia of Islands'', and wrote that since Koppers included areas such as Vancouver Island, it is "not clear what the referents of 'Pacific Region', 'Oceania' or 'Pacific Islands' are." He added that, "Asia, Europe and the Maritime Continent are not literal geographic continents. The 'Asia-Pacific region' would comprise two quasi-continents. 'The Pacific' would not refer to the Pacific Ocean and everything in it e.g., the Philippines." ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names'' (2017), by John Everett-Heath, states that Oceania is "a collective name for more than 10,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean" and that "it is generally accepted that Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the islands north of Japan (the Kurils and Aleutians) are excluded." In his 1993 book ''A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands'', Fijian and Tongan scholar Epeli Hauofa wrote that, "Pacific Ocean islands from Japan, through the Philippines and Indonesia, which are adjacent to the Asian mainland, do not have oceanic cultures, and are therefore not part of Oceania."

In 1961, Japanese novelist and World War II navy veteran Toshio Shimao coined the term "Japonesia", which refers to the idea of mapping Japan as a Pacific archipelago rather than as an outlying region of Asia. He wrote that, "our Japan is often considered in terms of its separation from continental Asia, but there is another way of seeing it. Together with Polynesia, Micronesia and Indonesia, it is also one of a number of island groups in the Pacific Ocean. When we become more conscious of this facet of our Japan, its ''Japonesian'' aspect will be assured." In a 2003 article titled ''Japonesia, Organic Geopolitics and the South'', Barnaby Breaden wrote that, "the discourse of Japonesia began as a way of understanding Japanese cultural identity in terms of its links with the islands of the western Pacific, rather than in more conventional terms as an extension of continental Asia. During the 1970s, the concept came to be associated with political and geo-political discourse. In particular, Okinawan reversion to Japanese control." In 2014, American historian Ryan Tucker Jones argued in ''The Journal of Pacific History'' that "several themes prominent in the history of Oceania – such as humans' orientation towards the ocean, the complex ways in which European and Indigenous histories mixed in the colonial era, and the notion of vast, interconnected spaces – apply to North Pacific history as well", adding that "the history of the Russian Far East and Alaska could be written as Pacific history and integrated into histories of Oceania. Such an integration would provide numerous benefits for historians and activists in the North Pacific." He noted, "though Aleuts, Nivkhs and others are separated by several thousand miles and many degrees of average yearly temperature from Oceania, they have created and experienced histories that echo and have an impact on those further south."

In his 2015 book ''Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues'', American historian Steven L. Danver claimed that, "the term Oceania, in its broadest sense, includes all insular regions between Asia and the Americas. While Japan and the Ryukyu Islands usually are considered part of Asia, and the Aleutians are viewed as a part of the Americas, in fact, these islands represent the northern part of Oceania. Likewise, the islands of the East Indies, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia belong to Oceania, as does Australia. However, Oceania most commonly is understood to refer to the islands in the center of the Pacific Ocean." Alain Chenevière and Roger Sabater's 1995 book ''Pacific: the Boundless Ocean'' similarly states that, "In its restricted sense, Oceania includes all land masses in the Pacific." However, the book added that, "the peripheral archipelagos in the Pacific like the Aleutians, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia do not form part of it, since they are attached both geologically, historically and ethnologically to thercontinents." The book defined Oceania as encompassing Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The 1978 book ''The Changing Pacific'', by Niel Gunson, stated that "the Japanese, or say the Aleuts are "Pacific peoples", but in practice hefield of Pacific history has come to meant that of the islanders of Oceania. The other peoples are marginal to the Ocean, not embraced in it." British historian David Armitage wrote in his 2014 book ''Pacific Histories: Ocean, Land, People'' that, "New Zealand and Australia are sometimes considered part of the Pacific, sometimes not. Archipelagos which might otherwise appear to be "in" the Pacific are by convention usually excluded: Indonesia (excluding West Papua), the Philippines, the Aleutians or even Japan. And yet Timor Leste (or East Timor) is an observer of the Pacific Islands Forum." Armitage adds that, "various geographers carve up this part of the world differently, using a range of labels such as Oceania, Asia-Pacific, the Pacific-Basin, the South Pacific or South Seas (which commonly includes islands in the north) or the Pacific Islands. Of course, all the seas are connected, and there are no neat limits. But the struggle for putting the Pacific into discourse is partly decided by how it is defined." Australian historian Stuart Macintyre reflects in his 2009 book ''A Concise History of Australia'' that, "Australians commonly regard themselves, along with New Zealanders, as part of Oceania, and they have liked to think they enjoy a special relation with the most powerful of all English-speaking countries on the other side of that ocean", however, he added that "as the balance of regional power shifted, Australians increasingly claim they are part of Asia and regard their earlier presence in the Pacific as a romantic interlude in tropical islands far removed from the business hub of Asian tigers." In a 2021 poll by Australian think tank the Lowy Institute, the majority of respondents (62%) chose Australia as being part of Oceania. 38% also selected the Indo-Pacific, while 32% selected the West and 21% selected Asia.

In ''Reptiles and Amphibians of the Pacific Islands: A Comprehensive Guide'' (2013), George R. Zug wrote that his preferred definition of Oceania emphasis islands with oceanic geology, stating that oceanic islands are, "islands with no past connections to a continental landmass" and that, "these boundaries encompass the Hawaiian and Bonin Islands in the north and Easter Island in the south, and the Palau Islands in the west to the Galápagos Islands in the east." Unlike the United Nations, the World Factbook defines the still-uninhabited Clipperton Island as being a discrete political entity, and they categorize it as part of North America, presumably due to its relative proximity (situated 1,200 kilometers off Mexico on the Pacific Plate). Clipperton is not politically associated with the Americas, as is the case with other oceanic islands nearing the Americas, having had almost no interaction with the continent throughout its history. From the early 20th century to 2007, the island was administratively part of French Polynesia, which itself was known as French Oceania up until 1957. In terms of marine fauna, Clipperton shares similarities with areas of the Pacific which are much farther removed from the Americas. Scottish author Robert Hope Moncrieff considered Clipperton to be the easternmost point of Oceania in 1907.

Other uninhabited Pacific Ocean landmasses have been explicitly associated with Oceania, including the highly remote Baker Island and Wake Island (now administered by the U.S. military). This is due to their location in the center of the Pacific, their biogeography and their oceanic geology. Less isolated oceanic islands that were once uninhabited, such as the Bonin Islands and the Juan Fernández Islands, have since been sparsely populated by citizens of their political administrators. Archaeological evidence suggests that Micronesians may have lived on the Bonin Islands 2,000 years ago, but they were uninhabited at the time of European discovery in the 16th century.

Like with these historically uninhabited areas, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Western New Guinea have also had diverging developments since European discovery, and they are still intertwined to the region not just through their geographical location or geology, but through past and present indigenous populations as well. The ''East Asia'' journal observes that, "Australia is often described as a "big brother" to island countries: part of the Pacific family by geography and history but set apart by wealth and national identity. With its Polynesian heritage, New Zealand has a greater claim to cultural connection with the Pacific. Australia and New Zealand are close allies, and consult closely on their engagement with Pacific island states. For the most part, they pursue a shared approach." Indigenous Australians are not considered to be Austronesians, although in 1940 Australian anthropologist Fred McCarthy described their culture as being "indissolubly bound up with that of Oceania." On the United States Census, they are categorized under the Pacific Islander American umbrella with Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians. Some theorize that Indigenous Australians are related to the Ainu people, who are the original inhabitants of Japan's Hokkaido and Russia's Kuril Islands. The indigenous inhabitants of Japan's Ryukyu Islands are also theorized to be related to Austronesians.

Boundaries between subregions

Depending on the definition, New Zealand could be part of Polynesia, or part of Australasia with Australia. New Zealand was originally settled by the Polynesian Māoris, and has long maintained a political influence over the subregion. Through immigration and high Māori birth rates, New Zealand has attained the largest population of Polynesians in the world, while Australia has the third largest Polynesian population (consisting entirely of immigrants). Modern-day Indigenous Australians are loosely related to Melanesians, and Australia maintains political influence over Melanesia, which is mostly located on the same tectonic plate. Despite this, Australia is rarely seen as a part of the subregion. As with Australia and New Zealand, Melanesia's New Caledonia has a significant non-indigenous European population, numbering around 71,000. Conversely, New Caledonia has still had a similar history to the rest of Melanesia, and their French-speaking Europeans make up only 27% of the total population. As such, it is not also culturally considered a part of the predominantly English-speaking Australasia. Some cultural and political definitions of Australasia include most or all of Melanesia, due to its geographical proximity to Australia and New Zealand, but these are rare. Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia are more commonly grouped together as part of the Australasian biogeographical realm. The UN's name for the Australasia subregion is "Australia and New Zealand"; their definition includes New Zealand, but places Papua New Guinea in Melanesia. Papua New Guinea is geographically the closest country to Australia, and is often geologically associated with Australia as it was once physiologically connected. The UN's definition of this subregion also includes Australia's Indian Ocean external territories of Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. They lie within the bounds of the Australian Plate and are sometimes geographically associated with Southeast Asia due to their proximity to western Indonesia. Both were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans during the 17th century. Approximately half of the population on these islands are European Australian mainlanders (with smaller numbers being European New Zealanders), while the other half are immigrants from China or the nearby Malay archipelago. The UN further define the subregion as including Australia's Indian Ocean external territory Heard Island and McDonald Islands. These islands lie on the Antarctic Plate and are also thought of as being in Antarctica or no region at all, due to their extreme geographical isolation. The World Factbook define Heard Island and McDonald Islands as part of Antarctica, while placing Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Islands as the westernmost extent of Oceania.

Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, was inhabited in prehistoric times by either Melanesians or Polynesians, and is geographically adjacent to the islands of Melanesia. The current inhabitants are mostly European Australians, and the UN categorize it as being in the Australasia subregion. The 1982 edition of the ''South Pacific Handbook'', by David Stanley, groups Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, and Hawaii together under an "Anglonesia" category. This is in spite of the geographical distance separating these areas from Hawaii, which technically lies in the North Pacific. The 1985 edition of the ''South Pacific Handbook'' also groups the Galápagos Islands as being in Polynesia, while noting that they are not culturally a part of the subregion. The islands are typically grouped with others in the southeastern Pacific that were never inhabited by Polynesians.

The Bonin Islands are in the same biogeographical realm as the geographically adjacent Micronesia, and are often grouped in with the subregion because of this.

History

Australia

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands who migrated from Africa to Asia 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia 50,000 years ago. They are believed to be among the earliest human migrations out of Africa. Although they likely migrated to Australia through Southeast Asia they are not demonstrably related to any known Asian or Polynesian population. There is evidence of genetic and linguistic interchange between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian peoples of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but this may be the result of recent trade and intermarriage.

They reached Tasmania 40,000 years ago by migrating across a land bridge from the mainland that existed during the last ice age. It is believed that the first early human migration to Australia was achieved when this landmass formed part of the Sahul continent