Papua New Guinea be reached by light aircraft or on foot. Jacksons International Airport is the major international airport in Papua New Guinea, located from Port Moresby. In addition to two international airfields, Papua New Guinea has 578 airstrips, most of which are unpaved. Government General information 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
Territory of Papua and New Guinea de Menezes came upon the principal island "Papua". In 1545, the Spaniard Iñigo Ortiz de Retes gave the island the name "New Guinea" because of what he saw as a resemblance between the islands' inhabitants and those found on the African Guinea coast. Knowledge of the interior of the island remained scant for several centuries after these initial European encounters. In 1884, Germany formally took possession of the northeast quarter of the island and it became known as German New Guinea. In 1884, a British protectorate was proclaimed over Papua – the southern coast of New Guinea. The protectorate, called