Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern

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 ...

and is the largest of the

Admiralty Islands The Admiralty Islands are an archipelago group of 40 islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the South Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-cov ...

. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles which can be broadly described as lowland

tropical rain forest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

. The highest point on Manus Island is Mt. Dremsel, above sea level at the centre of the south coast. Manus Island is

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

in origin and probably broke through the ocean's surface in the late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

, 8 to 10 million years ago. The substrate of the island is either directly volcanic or from uplifted

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

. Lorengau, the capital of Manus Province, is located on the island. Momote Airport, the terminal for Manus Province, is located on nearby Los Negros Island. A bridge connects Los Negros Island to Manus Island and the provincial capital of Lorengau. In the 2000 census, the whole Manus Province had a population of 50,321. The Austronesian Manus languages are spoken on the island. Papua New Guinea allowed the government of Australia to run a controversial offshore immigration detention centre, the Manus Regional Processing Centre, which was situated on adjacent Los Negros Island from 2001 to 2017, to house asylum seekers arriving by boat found within Australia's defined territorial borders. Manus Island is home to the

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

emerald green snail, whose shells were harvested to be sold as jewellery; this continues, albeit at a lesser scale, as due to the snail's status as a threatened species, its sale for this purpose is now illegal in many jurisdictions.

History

The first recorded sighting of Manus Island by Europeans was by Spanish explorer Álvaro de Saavedra on board the

carrack A carrack (; ; ) is a three- or four- masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for Europea ...

''Florida'' on 15 August 1528, while trying to return to

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

from the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonics, Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West ...

. Saavedra circled Manus Island, and landed possibly on Murai

islet An islet ( ) is generally a small island. Definitions vary, and are not precise, but some suggest that an islet is a very small, often unnamed, island with little or no vegetation to support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/ ...

to the south west. Murai was found to be inhabited and some natives came out in

canoes A canoe is a lightweight, narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using paddles. In British English, the term ''canoe'' ca ...

, attacking with bows and

arrow An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...

s. Three of these men were captured by the Spaniards, and were returned by Saavedra to the same island, on his second attempt to return to North America the following year. Manus Island was charted as ''Urays la Grande'' or Big Urays, which is probably a projection of Murai to signify "big Murai".

World War II

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Manus Island was the site of an observation post manned by No. 4 Section, 'B' Platoon, 1st Independent Company, Australian Imperial Force, who also provided medical treatment to the inhabitants. Manus was first bombed by the Japanese on 25 January 1942, the radio mast being the main target. On 8 April 1942 an Imperial Japanese force consisting of the light cruiser ''Tatsuta'', destroyer ''Mutsuki'' and a troop transport ship ''Mishima Maru'' entered Lorengau harbour and several hundred Japanese soldiers of the 8th Special Base Force invaded the island. The vastly outnumbered Australians withdrew into the jungle to fight a guerilla campaign. Later in 1942, Japan established a military base on Manus Island, using prisoners of war (notably Sikh prisoners of the 5th/11th Sikh regiment taken in the

Fall of Singapore The fall of Singapore, also known as the Battle of Singapore, took place in the South–East Asian theatre of the Pacific War. The Empire of Japan captured the British stronghold of Singapore, with fighting lasting from 8 to 15 February 1942. S ...

) as slave labor. The island was attacked by United States forces in the Admiralty Islands campaign of February – March 1944. An Allied naval base was established at Seeadler Harbor, Manus Naval Base, on the island and it later supported the British Pacific Fleet. The ammunition ship exploded in Seeadler Harbor on 10 November 1944 with a heavy loss of life of US Navy personnel. In 1950–51 the Australian government conducted the last trials against Japanese war criminals on the island. One case heard was that of

Takuma Nishimura was a Japanese army general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, active in the invasion and occupation of British Malaya. After the Japanese surrender, he was tried and convicted in British Singapore as a war criminal for his r ...

, who faced an Australian military court. He had already been tried by a British military court in relation to the Sook Ching massacre in Singapore and sentenced to life imprisonment. While on a stopover in Hong Kong he was intercepted by Australian military police. Evidence was presented stating that Nishimura had ordered the shootings of wounded Australian and Indian soldiers at Parit Sulong and the disposal of bodies to cover up the killings. In this trial he was found guilty and was hanged on 11 June 1951. American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Margaret Mead Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard Col ...

lived on Manus Island before and after the war, and gave detailed accounts in ''Growing up in New Guinea'' and ''New Lives for Old''.

Detention centre

In addition to its resident population, asylum seekers have been located on Los Negros between 2001 and 2004 and since 2012. Australia set up the Manus Regional Processing Centre on Manus Island in 2001 as part of its Pacific Solution immigration policy. In August 2012, the Australian Government controversially announced it would resume offshore processing; in November 2012 the relocation of asylum-seekers to Manus Island resumed. On 26 April 2016, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea ruled that the detention of asylum seekers on Manus Island was illegal, and Prime Minister

Peter O'Neill Peter Charles Paire O'Neill (born 13 February 1965) is a Papua New Guinean politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 2011 to 2019. He has been a Member of Parliament for Ialibu-Pangia since 2002. He was a fo ...

announced that the centre would be closed. After a stand-off involving PNG military and police, all remaining men were removed to new accommodation at the East Lorengau Refugee Transit Centre, Hillside Haus and West Lorengau Haus by 23 November 2017. In late 2019, the remaining asylum seekers were moved to

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New ...

, and upon request by the PNG government, the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...

terminated the contracts of the service providers for the detention centre and other facilities as of 30 November 2019.

Naval bases

On 20 September 2018, ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

'' reported that Australia and Papua New Guinea were discussing providing port facilities to the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

and

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

on Manus Island. Australia and the United States would help expand Lombrum Naval Base, so there would be facilities for Australian naval vessels there. The newspaper reported that Australia was countering interest China had placed in expanding Papua New Guinea's port facilities at Wewak, Kikori,

Vanimo Vanimo is the capital of Sandaun Province (West Sepik) in north-westernmost Papua New Guinea and of Vanimo-Green River District. It is located on a peninsula close to the Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border, border with Indonesia, nearest to Jaya ...

and Manus Island. Manus Island is the most important of these four ports, as it is a deep-water port near important shipping lanes. The RAN operated a naval base on Manus Island from the 1950s until transferred to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in 1974.

Interstellar meteor

In April 2022, the 2014 meteor called

CNEOS 2014-01-08 CNEOS 2014-01-08, also known as Interstellar meteor 1 (IM1), was a meteor that impacted Earth on 8 January 2014 near the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea. It was claimed to be an interstellar object in a 2019 preprint by astronomers Amir Sir ...

was confirmed to have been the first known object from beyond the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

to have struck Earth. Some debris had reached the surface off the coast of Manus Island and may be recoverable.

Notes

References

External links

ManusIsland.com
{{authority control Islands of Papua New Guinea Volcanoes of Papua New Guinea Miocene volcanoes Manus Province Prison islands