East New Britain is a

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, consisting of the north-eastern part of the island of

New Britain New Britain () is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi Island, Umboi the Dampie ...

and the Duke of York Islands. The capital of the province is Kokopo, not far from the old capital of

Rabaul Rabaul () is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, on the island of New Britain. It lies about to the east of the island of New Guinea. Rabaul was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province ...

, which was largely destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 1994. East New Britain covers a total land area of , and the province's population was reported as 220,133 in the 2000 census, rising to 328,369 in the 2011 count. Provincial coastal waters extend over an area of . The province's only land border is with West New Britain Province to the west, and it also shares a maritime border with

New Ireland Province New Ireland Province, formerly New Mecklenburg (), and Nova Hibernia, is the northeasternmost Provinces of Papua New Guinea, province of Papua New Guinea. Physical geography The largest island of the province is New Ireland (island), New Irelan ...

to the east. East New Britain has a dual economy: a cash economy operates side by side with the

subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing and shelter) rather than to the market. Definition "Subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself and family at a minimum level. Basic subsiste ...

-farming sector. The main crops produced for export are cocoa and

copra Copra (from ; ; ; ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted ...

. Tourism continues to be an increasingly important sector of the provincial economy.

Languages

There are sixteen

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

spoken in the province, of which Kuanua, spoken by the Tolai on the

Gazelle Peninsula The Gazelle Peninsula is a large peninsula in northeastern East New Britain, Papua New Guinea located on the island of New Britain within the Bismarck Archipelago, situated in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The Rabaul caldera is located on t ...

is the most widely spoken.

Papuan languages The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands in Indonesia, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. It is a strictly geographical grouping, and does not imply ...

are also spoken in the province, including the Baining, Taulil, Ata, Kol, Makolkol, and Sulka languages.

Districts and LLGs

Each province in Papua New Guinea has one or more districts, and each district has one or more Local Level Government (LLG) areas. For

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

purposes, the LLG areas are subdivided into wards and those into census units.

Provincial leaders

The province was governed by a decentralised provincial administration, headed by a premier, from 1977 to 1995. Following reforms taking effect that year, the national government reassumed some powers, and the role of Premier was replaced by a position of Governor, to be held by the winner of the province-wide seat in the

National Parliament of Papua New Guinea The National Parliament of Papua New Guinea is the Unicameralism, unicameral national legislature in Papua New Guinea. It was created in 1964 as the House of Assembly of Papua and New Guinea but gained its current name after the nation was grante ...

Premiers (1978–1995)

Governors (1995–present)

Members of the National Parliament

The province and each district is represented by a member of the

National Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. There is one provincial

electorate Electorate may refer to: * The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate'' * The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806 * An electoral district ...

and each district is an open electorate.

References

External links

East New Britain Tourism & Trade DirectoryEast New Britain Provincial AdministrationPNG National Game Fishing Titles Rabaul 2008
{{Authority control * Islands Region (Papua New Guinea) Provinces of Papua New Guinea