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
Territory of Papua and New Guinea largest series of connected operations ever mounted by the Australian armed forces. Bitter fighting continued in New Guinea between the Allies and the Japanese 18th Army based in New Guinea until the Japanese surrender in 1945. Following the Surrender of Japan in 1945, civil administration of Papua and New Guinea was restored, and under the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration Act (1945–46), Papua and New Guinea were combined in an administrative union. The Papua and New Guinea Act 1949 united, for administrative purposes only, the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea as the Territory of Papua and