Vanuatu

Facts & Figures

Map of Vanuatu

President: Iolu Abil (2009)

Prime Minister: Moana Carcasses Kalosil (2013)

Total area: 4,710 sq mi (12,200 sq km)

Population (2012 est.): 256,155 (growth rate: 2.12%); birth rate: 27/1000; infant mortality rate: 17.9/1000; life expectancy: 65.06; density per sq mi: 51

Capital and largest city (2009 est.): Port Vila, 44,040

Monetary unit: Vatu

More Facts & Figures

Index

Vanuatu Main Page
Prime Minister's Leadership Challenged in Court
Lacking a Majority, Prime Minister Kilman Resigns

Major sources and definitions

Geography

Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands lying between New Caledonia and Fiji in the South Pacific. Largest of the islands is Espiritu Santo (875 sq mi; 2,266 sq km); others are Efate, Malekula, Malo, Pentecost, and Tanna.

Government

Republic.

History

The first settlers are believed to have arrived approximately 3,500 years ago from New Guinea and the Solomon Islands by canoe. The islands were sighted by Pedro Fernandes de Queiros of Portugal in 1606 and were charted by the British navigator James Cook in 1774, who named the archipelago New Hebrides, after the northern Scottish islands. Competing British and French claims to the islands led to the formation of a condominium government, allowing for joint British-French rule in 1906. The islands' plantation economy, based on imported Vietnamese labor, was prosperous until the 1920s, when markets for its products declined. Diseases brought by missionaries, sandalwood traders, and others helped reduce the population from approximately 1 million in 1800 to 45,000 in 1935. The islands served as a major Allied base in World War II. After the war, the indigenous Melanesians began lobbying for independence, which in 1980 the country achieved. It was then renamed Vanuatu.

A brief rebellion by French settlers and plantation workers on Espiritu Santo took place in May 1980. Britain, France, and Papua New Guinea sent soldiers, who quelled the revolt, which the new government said was financed by the Phoenix Foundation, a right-wing U.S. group.

In July 2002, former prime minister Barak Sope was convicted of forgery. Alfred Maseng was elected president in April 2004, but he was forced to step down when his criminal record was revealed. In Aug. 2004, Kalkot Mataskelekele was selected from 16 candidates as the new president. He is the country's first president to hold a university degree.