New Caledonia Gare Maritime in Nouméa. The passenger-and-cargo boat "Havannah" sails to Port Vila, Malicolo and Santo in Vanuatu once a month. New Caledonia's road network consists of: New Caledonia New Caledonia (; ) is a special collectivity of France in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea. Locals refer to Grande Terre as "" ("the pebble"). New
Nickel mining in New Caledonia of the total value of exports. New Caledonia has the longest history of mining in the Pacific islands. Nickel was found in New Caledonia in 1864 by the engineer Jules Garnier. It was distributed in the ore layers which cover about one third of the area of the main island of New Caledonia. The nickel concentration was inhomogeneous and also varied with the depth. Whereas its usual concentration was 2–5 percent, it could reach 10–15 percent in scattered deposits of green garnierite. Those areas were developed first using primitive manual extraction methods and were gradually depleted, resulting in the present