Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (PNG; , ; ; ), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. This followed nearly 60
Papua New Guinea institutions. This includes 500 schools of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea has six universities apart from other major tertiary institutions. The two founding universities are the University of Papua New Guinea, based in the National Capital District, and the Papua New Guinea University of Technology, based outside of Lae, in Morobe Province. The four other universities which were once colleges were established recently after gaining government recognition. These are the University of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands province, Divine Word University (run by the Catholic Church's Divine Word Missionaries) in Madang Province, Vudal University