Owen Stanley Range is the south-eastern part of the central mountain-chain in

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 ...

. Its highest point is Mount Victoria at , while its most prominent peak is Mount Suckling.

History

Owen Stanley Range was seen in 1849 by Captain

Owen Stanley Captain Owen Stanley FRS RN (13 June 1811 – 13 March 1850) was a British Royal Navy officer and surveyor. Life Stanley was born in Alderley, Cheshire, the son of Edward Stanley, rector of Alderley and later Bishop of Norwich. A brother w ...

while surveying the south coast of Papua and named after him. The eastern extremity of the range is Mount Victoria, which was climbed by Sir

William MacGregor Sir William MacGregor, (20 October 1846 – 3 July 1919)R. B. Joyce,', ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 5, Melbourne University Press, 1974, pp 158–160. Retrieved 29 September 2009 was a Lieutenant-Governor of British New Guine ...

in 1888, and it extends as far west as Mount Thynne and Lilley. But the name is generally used to denote the whole of the chain of the

Papuan Peninsula The Papuan Peninsula, also known as the Bird's Tail Peninsula, is a large peninsula in Papua New Guinea, southeast of the city of Lae, that makes up the southeastern portion of the island of New Guinea. The peninsula is the easternmost extent of t ...

, from Mount Chapman to the south-eastern end of the island, and to include Mount Albert Edward which is really separated from it by the Wharton Chain.

Geography

OwenStanleyJungle clad mountainsPapuaNew Guinea

The range is flanked by broken and difficult country, particularly on the south-western side. There are few practicable passes, the easiest being the famous

Kokoda Track The Kokoda Track or Trail is a single-file foot thoroughfare that runs overland – in a straight line – through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The track was the location of the 1942 World War II battle between Japanes ...

which crosses the range between

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New ...

and Buna and was in use for more than 50 years as a regular overland mail-route. Another route used by the 900 men of the US 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Division, was the Kapa Kapa Trail, parallel to but to the southeast of the Kokoda Track. They took nearly five weeks to cover the track over extraordinarily difficult jungle terrain, from 14 October to 20 November 1942. Vehicular roads, though not impossible, would be very difficult and expensive to construct. In fact one was constructed 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 opposing ...

crossing from Wau in the north to Bulldog in the south and known as the Bulldog Track. It was largely due to the impossibility of transporting heavy equipment across the range that the Japanese failed to secure Port Moresby as a base early in 1942. The mountains are rough and precipitous, with occasional fertile plateaux which are occupied by native food-gardens.

Eponyms

Two species of reptiles are named after Owen Stanley Range, '' Papuascincus stanleyanus'' and '' Toxicocalamus stanleyanus''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Stanley", p. 251).

References

{{Mountain ranges of New Guinea Mountain ranges of Papua New Guinea

History

Geography

Eponyms

See also

References