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Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically , physiogeographically , philologically , and ecologically , where the term ...
Thus, Oceania most commonly refers to the land areas of the South and Central Pacific. [104] Kennedy defined Oceania as including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. [104] 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 ...
This is a list of sovereign states and dependent territories in the geographical region of Oceania. Although it is mostly ocean and spans many tectonic plates, Oceania is occasionally listed as one of the continents. Most of this list follows the boundaries of geopolitical Oceania, which includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
The boundaries of Oceania are defined in a number of ways. Most definitions include parts of Australasia such as Australia , New Zealand , and New Guinea , and parts of Maritime Southeast Asia . [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Ethnologically , the islands of Oceania are divided into the subregions of 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. Oceania is the smallest continent in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.
It has historically been included in definitions of Oceania, ever since the term was first coined in the early 1810s. In the 19th century, many geographers divided up Oceania into mostly racially-based subdivisions; Australasia, Malaysia (encompassing the Malay Archipelago), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. [56]
[34] Some 19th century definitions of Oceania grouped Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia together under the label of Australasia, in other 19th century definitions of Oceania, the term was only used to refer to Australia itself, with New Zealand being categorized with the islands of Polynesia in such definitions. [35] [25]
Below is a list of countries and dependencies in Oceania by area. [1] Australia is the largest country in Oceania while Nauru is the smallest. Country / dependency %