The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western

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 ...

, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

n subregion and

bioregion A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the ...

Oceania Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...

and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across

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 ...

and

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 ...

(country). The largest island in the archipelago is the Bougainville Island, which is a part of the

Autonomous Region of Bougainville Bougainville ( ; ; Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil''), officially the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (Tok Pisin: ''Otonomos Region bilong Bogenvil''), is an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. The largest island is Bougainville Island, while the re ...

(currently a part of

) along with

Buka Island Buka Island is the second-largest island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in eastern Papua New Guinea. It is in Buka Rural LLG of North Bougainville District, with the Autonomous Region's and district's capital city of Buka on th ...

, the

Nukumanu Islands The Nukumanu Islands, formerly the Tasman Islands, is an atoll of Papua New Guinea, located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, 4 degrees south of the Equator. Description Comprising a ring of more than twenty islets on a reef surrounding a l ...

, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of

and include the

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 gr ...

s of Ontong Java,

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 ...

, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the

high island Geologically, a high island or volcanic island is an island of volcanic origin. The term can be used to distinguish such islands from low islands, which are formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs (which have often formed ...

s of Choiseul, Guadalcanal,

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. ...

, Malaita,

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most ...

, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the

Shortlands Shortlands is a suburb of South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It has been part of Greater London since 1965, and was previously part of the historic county of Kent. It is located between Beckenham and Bromley, to t ...

Geography

The Solomon Islands (archipelago) consists of over 1,000 islands, ranging from low-lying

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and ...

atolls to mountainous

s, including many

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

es with varying degrees of activity. Bougainville Island is the largest in the archipelago, with an area of 9,300 km² (3591 sq miles). Mount Balbi on Bougainville is the highest peak in the archipelago at 2,715 metres.

Geology

The Solomon Islands (archipelago) was formed by the convergence of the Indo-Australian Plate and the Pacific Plate. The Indo-Australian Plate and the smaller

Solomon Sea Plate The Solomon Sea Plate is a minor tectonic plate to the northwest of the Solomon Islands archipelago in the south Pacific Ocean. Itt roughly corresponds with the Solomon Sea east of Papua New Guinea. Tectonics The tectonic regime in this part of t ...

are

subducting Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...

beneath the Pacific Plate along the New Britain–San Cristobal

oceanic trench Oceanic trenches are prominent long, narrow topographic depressions of the ocean floor. They are typically wide and below the level of the surrounding oceanic floor, but can be thousands of kilometers in length. There are about of oceanic tren ...

, which runs south of and parallel to the archipelago in the Solomon Sea. The surface geology of the islands is mostly

igneous rock Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma o ...

s, outcrops of

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. All ...

lowlands, and uplifted coral islands. Areas of ancient coralline limestone are found on Bougainville.Wikramanayake, Eric; Eric Dinerstein; Colby J. Loucks; et al. (2002). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a Conservation Assessment.'' Washington, DC: Island Press Active and dormant volcanoes are found in an arc extending from Bougainville in the north through 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 ...

and

Savo Island Savo Island is an island in Solomon Islands in the southwest South Pacific ocean. Administratively, Savo Island is a part of the Central Province of the Solomon Islands. It is about from the capital Honiara. The principal village is Alialia, i ...

to Gallego volcano on the northwest end of Guadalcanal.

Climate

The climate of the islands is tropical; however, temperatures do not greatly fluctuate due to the

heat sink A heat sink (also commonly spelled heatsink) is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant, where it is dissipated away from the device, th ...

of the surrounding ocean. Daytime temperatures are normally and at night. From April to October (the dry season), the southeast trade winds blow, gusting at times up to or more. November to March is the wet season, caused by 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 osci ...

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

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 no ...

and New Caledonia or down the coast of Australia.

Ecology

Terrestrial

The natural vegetation of the Solomon Archipelago consists of lowland and tropical forests. The major plant communities include coastal strand, mangrove forests, freshwater swamp forests, lowland rain forests, and montane rain forest. Seasonally-dry forests and grasslands are found on the northern ( leeward) slopes of Guadalcanal. The islands are home to 47 native mammal species, including

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...

s, murid rodents, and possums, gliders, and cuscuses. 26 species are endemic or near-endemic – 17 species of bats, and nine species of murid rodent. 199 bird species are native to the Solomon archipelago, of which 69 species are endemic.

Freshwater

On the larger mountainous islands in the archipelago, numerous streams and short rivers run from the mountains to the sea, cutting deep valleys. The freshwater fishes of the Solomon Archipelago have not been well studied, but there are likely four

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

species of freshwater fish in the islands - two species of genus '' Sicyopterus'', one of '' Lentipes'', and one of '' Stenogobius''. The Otomebora mullet ''( Planiliza melinopterus)'' is endangered.

Marine

The Solomon Archipelago has a rich and diverse marine life, including coral reefs and seagrass meadows. The archipelago is part of the

Coral Triangle The Coral Triangle (CT) is a roughly triangular area in the tropical waters around the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. This area contains at least 500 species of reef-building corals in e ...

, the region of the western Pacific with world's greatest diversity of corals and coral reef species. The Solomons have 494 species of

, and 1019 species of reef fish.

Dugong The dugong (; ''Dugong dugon'') is a marine mammal. It is one of four living species of the order Sirenia, which also includes three species of manatees. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest m ...

s are found in the seagrass meadows and near-shore waters.

History

Prehistory

It is believed that Papuan-speaking settlers began to arrive around 30,000 BCE from New Ireland. It was the furthest humans went in the

Pacific 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 contine ...

until

Austronesia The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, Micronesia, coastal New Guinea, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar that speak Austrone ...

n speakers arrived c. 4000 BCE, also bringing cultural elements such as the

outrigger canoe Outrigger boats are various watercraft featuring one or more lateral support floats known as outriggers, which are fastened to one or both sides of the main hull. They can range from small dugout canoes to large plank-built vessels. Outrigger ...

. Kirch, Patrick Vinton (2002)
''On the Road of the Winds: An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands''
Berkeley, California: University of California Press. It is between 1200 and 800 BCE that the ancestors of the

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

ns, the Lapita people, arrived from the Bismarck Archipelago with their characteristic

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

s. Most of the languages spoken today in the Solomon Islands derive from this era, but some thirty languages of the pre-Austronesian settlers survive ''(see East Papuan languages).''

European period

The first European to visit the islands was the Spanish navigator

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira Álvaro de Mendaña y Neira (or Neyra) (1 October 1542 – 18 October 1595) was a Spanish navigator and discoverer, best known for two of the earliest recorded expeditions across the Pacific in 1567 and 1595. His voyages led to the discovery of ...

, coming from the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed fro ...

to the

Spanish East Indies The Spanish East Indies ( es , Indias orientales españolas ; fil, Silangang Indiyas ng Espanya) were the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia and Oceania from 1565 to 1898, governed for the Spanish Crown from Mexico City and Madri ...

in 1568. The people of Solomon Islands had engaged in

headhunting Headhunting is the practice of hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing the victim, although sometimes more portable body parts (such as ear, nose or scalp) are taken instead as trophies. Headhunting was practiced in h ...

and cannibalism before the arrival of the Europeans."
From primitive to postcolonial in Melanesia and anthropology
'". Bruce M. Knauft (1999).

University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including ...

. p.103. Missionaries began visiting the Solomons in the mid-19th century. They made little progress at first, because "

blackbirding Blackbirding involves the coercion of people through deception or kidnapping to work as slaves or poorly paid labourers in countries distant from their native land. The term has been most commonly applied to the large-scale taking of people in ...

", the often brutal recruitment and relocation of labourers for the sugar plantations in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

and Fiji, led to a series of reprisals and massacres. In 1885 the Germans declared a protectorate over the northern islands, to form the German Solomon Islands Protectorate. The evils of the labour trade prompted the United Kingdom to declare a protectorate over the southern islands in June 1893, the

British Solomon Islands Protectorate The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first declared over the southern Solomons in 1893, when Captain Gibson, R.N., of , declared the southern islands a British protectorate. Other islands were subsequently declared to form part o ...

. In 1900, under the Treaty of Berlin, the Germans transferred a number of their Solomon Islands to the

. The remaining German Solomon Islands, at the extreme northwest of the archipelago, were retained by Germany until they fell to Australia early on in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After the war the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...

formally mandated those islands to Australia along with the rest of

German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

, becoming Australian New Guinea. 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 ...

, the

Territory of Papua The Territory of Papua comprised the southeastern quarter of the island of New Guinea from 1883 to 1975. In 1883, the Government of Queensland annexed this territory for the British Empire. The United Kingdom Government refused to ratify the a ...

and the Mandated

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the na ...

were within the

Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit The Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) was a civil administration of Territory of Papua and the Mandated Territory of New Guinea formed on 21 March 1942 during World War II. The civil administration of both Papua and the Mand ...

(1942–1946). After the war the Australian Territory of New Guinea was administered separately from the neighbouring Territory of Papua until the year 1949 when the two territories were formally united into the

Territory of Papua and New Guinea The Territory of Papua and New Guinea, officially the Administrative Union of the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea, was established by an administrative union between the Australian-administered territories of Papua and New G ...

Independence

The

became independent from Australia in the year 1975 as the modern state of

. The

of Papua New Guinea was established in the northern Solomon Islands in 2000. Following the independence of neighbouring Papua New Guinea from Australia in 1975, the British Solomon Islands gained self-government in 1976. Independence for the

nation was granted on 7 July 1978.

Demographics

The population of the Solomons is mostly Melanesian, although minority Polynesian and

Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...

n communities exist. There has also been a large influx of Chinese immigrants.

Languages

Around 60 to 70 languages are spoken in the

. Many

Melanesian languages In linguistics, Melanesian is an obsolete term referring to the Austronesian languages of Melanesia: that is, the Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, or Central–Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages apart from Polynesian and Micronesian. A typ ...

(predominantly of the Southeast Solomonic group) and

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...

are native to the area. Immigrant populations speak

Micronesian languages The twenty Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. Micronesian languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonants; they have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials. Languages According to Jack ...

. English is an official language in both areas of the archipelago. There are three families of

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...

native to the archipelago: the North Bougainville languages, South Bougainville languages, and the Central Solomon languages.

Religion

The predominant religion on the islands is Christianity, with the largest denomination being the

Anglican Church of Melanesia The Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACoM), also known as the Church of the Province of Melanesia and the Church of Melanesia (COM), is a church of the Anglican Communion and includes nine dioceses in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledoni ...

Governance

Governance of the Solomon Islands (archipelago) is split between the sovereign state of

and the

in Papua New Guinea. Both countries are constitutional monarchies and Commonwealth realms. In a 2019 referendum, over 98% of voters supported independence. Bougainville leaders have started negotiating independence terms with the government of Papua New Guinea.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Solomon Islands (Archipelago) Archipelagoes of Oceania Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean Geography of Melanesia Divided regions Archipelagoes of Papua New Guinea Autonomous Region of Bougainville Freshwater ecoregions