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Depending on the context, the term Pacific Islands may refer to one of several different concepts: (1) those countries and islands with common Austronesian origins, (2) the islands once (or currently) colonized, (3) the geographical region of Oceania, or (4) any island located in the Pacific Ocean. This list of islands in the Pacific Ocean is ...
The Pacific plate subsequently grew to where it underlies most of the Pacific Ocean basin. This reduced the Farallon plate to a few remnants along the west coast of the Americas and the Phoenix plate to a small remnant near the Drake Passage, and destroyed the Izanagi plate by subduction under Asia. The Pacific plate contains an interior hot ...
The archipelago sits on the Pacific plate. The islands are exposed peaks of a great undersea mountain range known as the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, formed by volcanic activity over the Hawaiian hotspot. The islands are about 1,860 miles (3,000 km) from the nearest continent and are part of the Polynesia subregion of Oceania.
New Zealand is located near the centre of the water hemisphere and is made up of two main islands and more than 700 smaller islands. [88] The two main islands (the North Island , or Te Ika-a-Māui , and the South Island , or Te Waipounamu ) are separated by Cook Strait , 22 kilometres (14 mi) wide at its narrowest point. [ 89 ]
By tradition, the islands located in the southern Pacific have also often been called the South Sea Islands, [4] and their inhabitants have been called South Sea Islanders. The Hawaiian Islands have often been considered to be part of the South Sea Islands because of their relative proximity to the southern Pacific islands, even though they are ...
Pacific Ocean, Melanesia Norfolk Island: One main island: Continental shelf [n 9] Australia: 36 14 2,182 60.6 157 Pacific Ocean, Melanesia Northern Mariana Islands [n 17] Archipelago: Oceanic United States: 464 179 51,395 111 290 Pacific Ocean, Micronesia Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno Islands: Archipelago: Oceanic United Kingdom: 47 18 ...
Kiribati includes Kiritimati (Christmas Atoll; in the Line Islands), the largest coral atoll (in terms of land area, not dimensions) in the world, and Banaba (Ocean Island), one of the three great phosphate rock islands in the Pacific. Kiribati straddles the equator in the Pacific Ocean, about one-half of the way from Hawaii to Australia.
Nauru is an oval-shaped island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 42 km (26 mi) south of the Equator, listed as the world's smallest republic, covering just 21 km 2 (8 sq mi). [21] With 12,511 residents, it is the third least-populated country, after Vatican City and Tuvalu.