Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

is an

island country An island country, island state or an island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...

in the

South Pacific Ocean South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

, that lies east of

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 ...

Islands

The major part of the nation of Solomon Islands is the mountainous high islands of the

Solomon Islands archipelago The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea ...

, which includes Choiseul, the

Shortland Islands The Shortland Islands is an archipelago of Western Province, Solomon Islands, at . The island group lies in the extreme north-west of the country's territory, close to the south-east edge of Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The largest isl ...

, the

New Georgia Islands The New Georgia Islands are part of the Western Province of Solomon Islands. They are located to the northwest of Guadalcanal. The larger islands are mountainous and covered in rain forest. The main islands are New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Ko ...

, Santa Isabel, the

Russell Islands :''See also Russell Island (disambiguation).'' The Russell Islands are two small islands ( Pavuvu and Mbanika), as well as several islets, of volcanic origin, in the Central Province of Solomon Islands. They are located approximately northwest o ...

, the

Florida Islands The Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, are a small island group in the Central Province of Solomon Islands, a sovereign state (since 1978) in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The chain is composed of four larger islands and about ...

Tulagi Tulagi, less commonly known as Tulaghi, is a small island——in Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Ngella Sule. The town of the same name on the island (pop. 1,750) was the capital of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate from 1 ...

Malaita Malaita is the primary island of Malaita Province in Solomon Islands. Malaita is the most populous island of the Solomon Islands, with a population of 161,832 as of 2021, or more than a third of the entire national population. It is also the se ...

Maramasike South Malaita Island is the island at the southern tip of the larger island of Malaita in the eastern part of the Solomon Islands. It is also known as Small Malaita and Maramasike for Areare speakers and Malamweimwei for more than 80% of the isla ...

, Ulawa,

Owaraha Owaraha or Owa Raha (also known as Santa Ana) is an island in Makira-Ulawa Province, Solomon Islands. Description This relatively small coral island is 5.6 km long and 4.5 km wide. It is located at the eastern end of Makira (San Cristob ...

(Santa Ana),

Makira The island of Makira (also known as San Cristobal and San Cristóbal) is the largest island of Makira-Ulawa Province in the Solomon Islands. It is third most populous island after Malaita and Guadalcanal, with a population of 55,126 as of 2020. ...

(San Cristobal), and the main island of

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the se ...

. (The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville, but it is politically an autonomous region of the neighbouring country of

.) Solomon Islands also includes isolated low-lying

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gro ...

s and high islands such as

Sikaiana Sikaiana (formerly called the Stewart Islands) is a small atoll NE of Malaita in Solomon Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is almost in length and its lagoon, known as Te Moana, is totally enclosed by the coral reef. Its total land s ...

Rennell Island Rennell Island, locally known as Mugaba, is the main island of two inhabited islands that make up the Rennell and Bellona Province in the nation state of Solomon Islands. Rennell Island has a land area of that is about long and wide. It is th ...

Bellona Island Bellona Island is an island of the Rennell and Bellona Province, in the Solomon Islands. Its length is about and its average width . Its area is about . It is almost totally surrounded by high cliffs, consisting primarily of raised coral lim ...

, the

Santa Cruz Islands The Santa Cruz Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Temotu Province of the nation of Solomon Islands discovered by the Spaniards. They lie approximately 250 miles (400 km) to the southeast of the Solomon Islands ...

and the remote, tiny outliers,

Tikopia Tikopia is a high island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It forms a part of the Melanesian nation state of Solomon Islands but is culturally Polynesian. The first Europeans arrived on 22 April 1606 as part of the Spanish expedition of Pedro F ...

Anuta Anuta is a small high island in the southeastern part of the Solomon Islands province of Temotu, one of the smallest permanently inhabited Polynesian islands. It is one of the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia. Geography The island ...

, and

Fatutaka Fatutaka, Fatu Taka or Patu Taka (also known as Fataka and Mitre Island) is a small high island in the Solomon Islands province of Temotu in the south-west Pacific Ocean. The easternmost of the Solomon Islands, Fatutaka is located southeast of ...

. The distance between the most western and most eastern islands is about . Especially the Santa Cruz Islands, north of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of ...

, are isolated at more than from the other islands. The total land size is . It has the 22nd largest Exclusive Economic Zone of .

Geology and ecology

Volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

es with varying degrees of activity are situated on some of the larger islands, while many of the smaller islands are simply tiny

s covered in sand and

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm tr ...

s. The baseline survey of marine biodiversity in the Solomon Islands that was carried out in 2004, found 474 species of corals in the Solomons as well as nine species which could be new to science. This is the second highest diversity of corals in the World, second only to the

Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago located off the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Southwest Papua , Southwest Papua province. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and sh ...

in eastern Indonesia.Doubilet, David (2007). Ultra Marine: In far eastern Indonesia, the Raja Ampat islands embrace a phenomenal coral wilderness. National Geographic, September 2007. Originally retrieved from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/indonesia/doubilet-text. Archived on 2008-04-09 at https://web.archive.org/web/20080409084522/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/09/indonesia/doubilet-text.

Climate

The climate is

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

, though temperatures are rarely extreme due to cooling winds blowing off the surrounding seas. Daytime temperatures are normally 25 to 32 °C (77 to 90 °F). From April to October (the dry season), the southeast trade winds blow, gusting at times up to 30 knots (55 km/h) or more. November to March is the wet season—the northwest

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

—typically warmer and wetter. Cyclones arise in the Coral Sea and the area of the Solomon Islands, but they usually veer toward

and

New Caledonia ) , anthem = "" , image_map = New Caledonia on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of New Caledonia , map_caption = Location of New Caledonia , mapsize = 290px , subdivision_type = Sovereign st ...

or down the coast of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

Climate data

Statistics

Geographic coordinates The geographic coordinate system (GCS) is a spherical or ellipsoidal coordinate system for measuring and communicating positions directly on the Earth as latitude and longitude. It is the simplest, oldest and most widely used of the various ...

: Area:
''total:'' 28,896 km² (10,985 mi²)
''land:'' 27,986 km² (10,633 mi²)
''water:'' 910 km² (351 mi²) Coastline: 5,313 km Maritime claims:
Measured from claimed archipelagic baselines
''continental shelf:''
''exclusive economic zone:'' (200 nmi)
''territorial sea:'' Terrain: Mostly rugged mountains with some low coral atolls Elevation extremes:
''lowest point:'' Pacific Ocean 0 m
''highest point:''

Mount Popomanaseu Mount Popomanaseu is a volcanic mountain and the highest mountain in the Solomon Islands. It is located on Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located i ...

2,332 m (7,651 ft) (not

Mount Makarakomburu Mount Makarakomburu is the second highest point in the Solomon Islands, located approximately 20 miles south of Honiara, the capital, on the island of Guadalcanal, which is the largest island in the country. Elevation SRTM, more accurate IFSAR d ...

) Natural resources:

fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phosph ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow t ...

Land use:
''arable land:'' 0.62%
''permanent crops:'' 2.04%
''other:'' 97.34% (2005) Irrigated land: NA Natural hazards:

Typhoon A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere. This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, and is the most active tropical cyclone basin on Earth, accounting for a ...

s, but they are rarely destructive; geologically active region with frequent earth tremors;

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...

activity Environment – current issues:

Deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...

;

soil erosion Soil erosion is the denudation or wearing away of the upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, air (wind), plants, a ...

; much of the surrounding

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...

s are dead or dying Environment – international agreements:
''party to:''

Biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic ('' genetic variability''), species ('' species diversity''), and ecosystem ('' ecosystem diversity'') ...

Climate Change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, Climate Change-

Kyoto Protocol The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part ...

Desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused ...

, Environmental Modification, Law of the Sea,

Marine Dumping The Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter 1972, commonly called the "London Convention" or "LC '72" and also abbreviated as Marine Dumping, is an agreement to control pollution of the sea by dum ...

, Marine Life Conservation,

Ozone Layer Protection The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force on ...

Whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

Extreme points

This is a list of the extreme points of

, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. * Northernmost point –

Ontong Java Atoll Ontong Java Atoll or Luangiua, (formerly ''Lord Howe Atoll'', not to be confused with Lord Howe Island) is one of the largest atolls on earth. Geographically it belongs to a scattered group of three atolls which includes nearby Nukumanu Atol ...

Malaita Province Malaita Province is the most populous and one of the largest of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands. It is named after its largest island, Malaita (also known as "Big Malaita" or "Maramapaina"). Other islands include South Malaita Island ( ...

* Easternmost point –

Temotu Province Temotu (or Te Motu, literally "the island" in Polynesian) is the easternmost province of Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to ...

* Southernmost point – South Reef, Indispensable Reef,

Rennell and Bellona Province Rennell and Bellona is one of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands, comprising two inhabited atolls, Rennell and Bellona, or and respectively in Rennellese (a Polynesian language), as well as the uninhabited Indispensable Reef. Rennell and ...

* Westernmost point –

Mono Island Mono Island is the largest island of the Treasury Islands, Solomon Islands, at . Geography Mono island is a volcanic island in the northwest of the Solomon Islands. It is separated by the Blanche Harbour from Stirling Island and the other cora ...

Treasury Islands Treasury Islands () are a small group of islands a few kilometres to the south of Bougainville and from the Shortland Islands. They form part of the Western Province of the country of Solomon Islands. The two largest islands in the Treasuries ...

, Western Province

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geography Of The Solomon Islands