historia: Polynesia

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Polynesia (UK: POL-in-EE-zee-ə, US: -⁠EE-zhə) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including linguistic relations, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs. The term Polynésie was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses, who originally applied it to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Société de Géographie of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the southern Pacific have also often been c…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. Melanesia borders Southeast Asia to the west, Polynesia to the east, Micronesia to the north and Australia to the south. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea. It also includes the Indonesian part of New Guinea, the French overseas collectivity of New Caledonia, and the Torres Strait Islands. Almost all of the region is in the Southern Hemisphere; only a few small islands that are not politically considered part of Oceania—specifically the northwestern…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Oceania is a geographical region – or, in certain classifications, one of the world’s continents – including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 46.3 million as of 2024, including Australia but excluding the Malay Archipelago. When compared against other continental land areas, Oceania is the smallest and the second-least populated after Antarctica. It is home to Earth's third-largest remaining area of tropical rainforest, which covers much of the island of New Guinea. Oc…

Evidence: 20 • authority: 72

Charles de Brosses (French: [də bʁɔs]), comte de Tournay, baron de Montfalcon, seigneur de Vezins et de Prevessin (7 February 1709 – 7 May 1777), was a French scholar of the 18th century.