The Nggela Islands, also known as the Florida Islands, are a small island group in the Central Province of

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 ...

, a

sovereign state A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined ter ...

(since 1978) in the southwest

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the conti ...

. The chain is composed of four larger islands and about 50 smaller islands. The two main islands, Nggela Sule and Nggela Pile to its southeast, are separated by a channel, Mboli Passage. The name Florida Island is sometimes also used to refer to Nggela Sule. The other two large islands lie northwest of Nggela Sule; Sandfly (also known as Mobokonimbeti or Olevugha) and, further northwest, Buenavista (also known as Vatilau). Many of the smaller islands have white coral beaches. North of Nggela Sule is Anuha (), and just off the southwest coast of Nggela Sule is

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 ...

. the capital of Central Province. Other islands include Gavutu and Tanambogo.

History

The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the brigantine ''Santiago'', commanded by ''

Maestre de campo ''Maestre de campo'' was a rank created in 1534 by the Emperor Carlos V, inferior in rank only to the ''capitán general'' and acted as a chief of staff. He was chosen by the monarch in the Council of State, and commanded a ''tercio''. Their powe ...

'' Pedro Ortega Valencia and having Hernán Gallego as pilot. They were who charted it as "Pascua Florida" (from the festival of that name) from where its present-day name "Florida" derives.

in Nggela Sule was the seat of the administration of the British Solomon Islands prior to the 1942 Japanese invasion in World War II. The Nggela Islands group lies immediately north of the more famous island of Guadalcanal, the scene of the Guadalcanal Campaign 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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

; however, Nggela Sule itself was garrisoned by the Japanese in April 1942 in connection with their efforts to establish a

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off and landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their technological characteri ...

base on neighbouring Gavutu. On 7 August of the same year, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment landed on the island to provide cover for the assault on the neighbouring Tulagi islet. Florida Island served as a small, secondary base of operations for the US and Australian and New Zealand war effort in the Pacific for the duration of the war. Following the Allied liberation of the island from the Japanese, it became the site of a US seaplane base. About 80 Japanese troops from Tulagi escaped to Florida Island and fought Marine and British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force patrols for the next two months until being wiped out. The island subsequently served as a watering point for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, diverting water from an underground source on the island. After World War II, the British administration moved to Honiara, Guadalcanal.

Fauna

The

Florida naked-tailed rat The Florida naked-tailed rat (''Solomys salamonis'') is a poorly known and possible extinct species of rodent in the family Muridae. It was confined to the Nggela Islands (previously known as Florida Islands) in the Solomon Islands. The originally ...

– possibly extinct – was endemic to the Nggela Islands. The black rat was introduced. Other animals include: * dark sheath-tailed bat * diadem leaf-nosed bat * dwarf flying fox * Geoffroy's rousette * great bent-winged bat * island tube-nosed fruit bat * long-tongued nectar bat *

Solomon's naked-backed fruit bat The Solomon's naked-backed fruit bat (''Dobsonia inermis'') is a species of megabat in the family Pteropodidae. It is endemic to the Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller ...

* Woodford's fruit bat

References

External links

Map including the Nggela Islands (labelled as Florida Islands)
{{authority control Islands of the Solomon Islands Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean