Land of plenty: History, tradition and a diverse range of natural resources

Occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and hundreds of adjacent smaller islands, Papua New Guinea is an important exporter of metals ( particularly gold and copper) and agricultural products such as coffee and palm oil. The country is also set to become a major exporter of gas, which should significantly increase the size of the economy.

The largely rural-based population is highly diverse, being made up of thousands of distinct communities that together account for around one-tenth of the world’s known languages, and remains heavily marked by indigenous cultural traditions. Geographically, the interior of Papua New Guinea is largely mountainous, while the country’s tropical rainforest is famous for the diversity of its flora and fauna.

GEOGRAPHY: Whilst the eastern half of the island of New Guinea is the country’s mainland, Papua New Guinea also includes three large islands (New Britain, New Ireland and Bougainville) and more than 600 small islands and archipelagos off New Guinea’s coast. It is located around 160 km north of the north-eastern tip of Australia and several hundred kilometres south of the equator, with the Solomon Sea to the east and the Coral Sea to the south and south-east.

The country has a geographical surface area of 462,840 sq km and a coastline of 5152 sq km, as well as an 820 km-long border with the Indonesian province of West Papua – formerly Irian Jaya – that makes up the western half of New Guinea. The capital, Port Moresby, is located on the south-eastern coast of the mainland, and as of 2009 was home to 314,000 people. The country’s population is largely rural, though other main towns include Lae, which has a population of around 200,000 and Mount Hagen, with about 40,000 people.

Papua New Guinea is geographically diverse, with terrain ranging from high interior mountains to jungle lowlands, in addition to tiny island archipelagos. Rainforest covers approximately 75% of the country. The highlands region is located in the north and is made up of five provinces, namely Enga and Simbu provinces, and the Southern, Western and Eastern Highlands provinces. The highest mountain in the country is Mount Wilhelm, which stands 4509 metres high. The country is located in the so-called Pacific ring of fire and contains numerous active volcanoes, including Ulawun, Rabaul and Lamington. Earthquakes are relatively common, sometimes accompanied by tsunamis.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: Papua New Guinea is a constitutional parliamentary democracy. Reflecting the country’s colonial past (it was long ruled by Australia), the British monarch remains the official head of state and is represented through a local governor elected by parliament whose role is largely ceremonial. A prime minister serves as head of the government, elected by the country’s 109-member unicameral parliament, which is itself elected by popular vote every five years. The next of these elections will be held in June 2012.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: The country is divided into 18 provinces, the autonomous region of Bougainville (made up of Bougainville Island and a number of other adjacent islands) and the National Capital District, where Port Moresby is located. Each province has an elected assembly and local government, headed by a provincial prime minister as well as a system of local governors. In addition, the country has around 160 elected councils at the local level of government.

POPULATION: As of July 2011 the country had an estimated population of 6.2m. The populace is fairly young, with a median age of just under 22 years, and is estimated to be growing at a rate of just under 2% a year. Papua New Guinea remains a largely rural country, with only 13% of the population living in towns as of 2010. Moreover, Papua New Guinean society is extremely diverse, thanks in part to the long-standing isolation of many local communities in the hard-to-reach mountain areas of the country’s highlands region (and the Southern Highlands province in particular), where around 40% of the population lives. Some isolated communities did not have contact with the outside world until as late as the 1970s. Major ethnic groups include Papuan, Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian but the country is thought to host several thousand smaller ethnic communities whose members mostly number in the hundreds, giving rise to the local saying “for each village, a different culture”.

RELIGION: Christianity was introduced to Papua New Guinea in the late 19th century by missionaries, and just under 97% of Papua New Guineans identified themselves as Christian in the national census in 2000. Yet the country is highly diverse in terms of denominational adherence and many Papua New Guineans combine elements of indigenous religions with Christianity. The largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholicism, to which 27% of the population subscribes, followed by Evangelical Lutheranism (20%), the United Church (12%) and Seventh-day Adventism (10%). All other denominations account for less than 10% of the population. The country also has a small number of followers of indigenous beliefs, Islam, Baha’ism and other faiths. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and there is no state religion.

LANGUAGE: The country has three official languages, namely Tok Pisin (Melanesian Pidgin), a creole language that is widely used as a lingua franca; English, which despite its status as the official language of business and government is not widely spoken; and Hiri Motu, a trade language spoken mainly on the southern coast. In addition to these, more than 850 different indigenous languages (by some estimates more than 1000), amounting to around a tenth of all languages worldwide, are thought to be spoken in the country, many by communities of just a few hundred people.

CULTURE & HERITAGE: As an overwhelmingly Christian country, Papua New Guinea observes Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter, though traditional indigenous festivals are often celebrated more intensely. Communities often mark local holidays and special occasions with days-long feasts accompanied by music and dancing as well as the distribution of gifts such as pigs. Important non-religious national festivals include the Mount Hagen cultural festival, begun by missionaries in the 1950s, during which several dozen local tribes and communities congregate for competitions, music, agricultural fairs and displays of traditional dress, often involving elaborate body and face painting. Since 1995 the country has also hosted an annual mask festival focusing on the culture of mask-making that is found particularly in the Gulf Province, Momase and New Guinea Islands regions of the country.

Traditional food includes tropical fruits such as coconuts, mangos and a variety of bananas; vegetables such as sweet potatoes, yams and breadfruit; and meat such as pork, fowl and turtle, as well as fish and shellfish in the country’s coastal areas.

CLIMATE: Climactic conditions are broadly tropical but vary widely by region. While much of the country sees frequent heavy rain, conditions in Port Moresby, for example, are closer to those of northern Australia, being mostly dry with a short rainy season. Given its proximity to the equator, temperatures in Port Moresby do not vary substantially throughout the year.

Daily average lows remain steady at 23-24°C, while daily average highs vary between 28°C in July and 32°C in December and January. Humidity levels in the capital are high for most of the year, with a slight respite in July and August. Average rainfall levels vary between a low of 18mm in August, which on average sees around 2 wet days, to 198mm in February, with 7 wet days.

NATURAL RESOURCES: Papua New Guinea is an important producer and exporter of metals and minerals. Total mineral exports in 2009, excluding crude oil, were worth approximately $2.8bn, amounting to around 62% of all exported goods. Mineral exports were overwhelmingly dominated by copper and gold, with gold exports alone amounting to just over $2bn in value in 2009, and copper exports standing at approximately $770m.

The country will host the world’s first offshore metals mining project, which is being developed to mine copper, gold and other metals at a depth of 1600 metres below sea level in the Bismarck Sea to the north of the country. In 2009 the country had oil reserves of around 90m barrels, ranking it the 61st in the world, and proven gas reserves of roughly 230bn cu metres, the world’s 40th-largest. A $15bn, 6.6m-tonnes-per-annum liquid natural gas facility is currently being built and is due to enter into operation in 2014, which will allow the country to begin gas exports that are thought to have the potential to increase national export revenues threefold. While minerals and hydrocarbons dominate exports, around 85% of the country’s population is employed in the agricultural sector, which comprises around one-third of total GDP.

The country’s main agricultural exports are coffee, tea, cocoa, coconuts and palm oil. Papua New Guinea ranked as the world’s 17th-largest producer of coffee in 2010, accounting for around 0.7% of global production. In addition, the country was the world’s seventh-largest producer and third-largest exporter of palm oil in 2008, with its 395,000 tonnes of foreign sales accounting for 1.3% of global exports. Forestry is also a substantial sector, accounting for around 4% of GDP.