Western Highlands is a province of

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 ...

. The provincial capital is Mount Hagen. The province covers an area of 4,299 km², and there are 362,850 inhabitants (2011 census), making the Western Highlands the most densely populated province (apart from the National Capital District).

Tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

and

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

are grown in the Western Highlands.

Split to create Jiwaka Province

In July 2009, Parliament passed legislation to create two new provinces by 2012. One of these was to be created by removing Jimi District, North Waghi District, and the South Waghi part of Anglimp-South Waghi District from the Western Highlands Province to form the new

Jiwaka Province Jiwaka is a province of Papua New Guinea. The government gazetted provincial capital is located in Kurumul. Temporarily all provincial matters are handled in Minj after the election of the new Governor in 2022 general elections. Matters concernin ...

. "Jiwaka" is a portmanteau combining the first two letters each of Jimi, Waghi and Kambia. Jiwaka Province officially came into being on 17 May 2012.

Economy

The Western Highlands economy is primarily based on coffee. Coffee is grown on plantations and small-holder blocks. They are picked, dried and processed for export. In addition, tea is also a major crop grown and processed, but in plantations by W. R. Carpenter & Co Ltd for local consumption and export. Apart from these, vegetables are grown for the domestic market, and sold mainly to markets Lae and Port Moresby.

Districts and LLGs

Since the separation of Jiwaka there are now four

districts A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

in the province. 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 1978 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

Provinces of Papua New Guinea Highlands Region {{WesternHighlandsProvince-geo-stub