melanesia

Noun
  1. The islands in the southwestern part of Oceania (synset 108855622)
    associated with: cargo cult - (Melanesia) the followers of one of several millenarian cults that believe salvation will come in the form of wealth (`cargo') brought by westerners; some ascribe divine attributes to westerners on first contact (especially to missionaries)
    is an instance of: archipelago - a group of many islands in a large body of water
    has:
    • fiji islands, fijis - a group of more than 800 islands (100 inhabited) in the southwestern Pacific; larger islands (Viti Levu and Vanua Levu) are of volcanic origin surrounded by coral reefs; smaller islands are coral
    • bismarck archipelago - a group of islands in the southwestern Pacific to the northeast of New Guinea; part of Papua New Guinea
    • new caledonia - an island to the to the east of Australia and to the north of New Zealand
    • solomon islands, solomons - the northernmost islands are part of Papua New Guinea; the remainder form an independent state within the British Commonwealth
    • new hebrides, republic of vanuatu, vanuatu - a volcanic island republic in Melanesia; independent since 1980
    is a part of:
    • oceania, oceanica - a large group of islands in the south Pacific including Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia (and sometimes Australasia and the Malay Archipelago)
    • austronesia - islands of central and South Pacific (Indonesia and Melanesia and Micronesia and Polynesia)

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