Oceanian anthems

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''.