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
Provinces of Papua New Guinea regions. People generally identify quite strongly with their region, and inter-region rivalries can be intense. The four regions are: "Momase" is a recently devised portmanteau word which combines the first two letters of "Morobe", "Madang" and "Sepik". Provinces of Papua New Guinea For administrative purposes, Papua New Guinea is divided into administrative divisions called provinces. Provincial governments are branches of the national government – Papua New Guinea is not a federation of provinces. There are 22 provinces, that includes the autonomous region (Bougainville) and the National Capital District. In 2009, the PNG parliament created two additional provinces, that officially came