The Northern Mariana Islands were settled by Austronesian people around 1500 B.C. These people became the indigenous Chamorro and were influenced by later migrations, including of Micronesians in the first century A.D., and island Southeast Asians around 900. Spanish explorer Ferdinand MAGELLAN sailed through the Mariana Islands in 1521 and The highest mountain in Australia and the wider region are relatively complicated to list due to the definitions of what countries are technically in Oceania. For the purposes of this article we have included Indonesia in Oceania as its highest peak, Puncak Jaya, or Carstensz Pyramid (4,884m / 16,024ft), is officially included as the 7 Summit How many countries are there in Australia 2020? So officially it's clear to see that there are 3 countries in Australia(Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea). Those 3 countries, plus 11 Pacific Island countries make up the 14 countries in the Oceania region. Pacific Islands, geographic region of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises three ethnogeographic groupings—Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia—but conventionally excludes Australia, the Indonesian, Philippine, and Japanese archipelagoes, and the Ryukyu, Bonin, Volcano, and Kuril island arcs beyond Japan. Key Facts. Flag. Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is located in the southern hemisphere and is bounded by two major bodies of water: the Indian Ocean to the west and the South Pacific Ocean to the east. As the world's sixth largest country, Australia covers a total area of about 7,741,220 km 2 (around 2.99 million mi 2 ). Melanesia ( UK: / ˌmɛləˈniːziə /, US: / ˌmɛləˈniːʒə /) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from New Guinea in the west to the Fiji Islands in the east, [1] [2] [3] and includes the Arafura Sea. [citation needed] The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands pIGX.

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