National Capital District (Papua New Guinea) National Capital District (Papua New Guinea) The National Capital District of Papua New Guinea is the incorporated area around Port Moresby, which is the capital of Papua New Guinea. Although it is surrounded by Central Province, where Port Moresby is also the capital, it is technically not a part of that province. It covers an area of 240 km² and has a population of 364,125 (2011 census). It is represented by three open MPs and an NCD-wide representative in the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea who acts as Governor of the National Capital District; however, these MPs do not
Provinces of Papua New Guinea the PNG national parliament. The 22 provincial members are chosen from single-member electorates. Each provincial member becomes governor of their province unless they take a ministerial position, in which case the governorship passes to an open member of the province. Immediately before independence on 16 September 1975, Papua New Guinea was divided into nineteen provinces and the National Capital District. These provinces corresponded to the "Districts" of the pre-Independence administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It had been considered that an independent state with limited resources could ill afford the infrastructure of a two-level quasi-federal governmental structure.