New Caledonia 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 Caledonia has a land area of . Its population of 268,767 (August 2014 census) consists of a mix of Kanak people (the original inhabitants of New
Bahá'í Faith in New Caledonia whose annual convention a delegate from the Nouméa spiritual assembly attended first in 1963. Jean Sevin, who was designated a Knight of Bahá'u'lláh to the Tuamotu Archipelago region, was the only French Bahá'í to pioneer in the Pacific during the Ten Year Crusade. In 1968, at the request of the Universal House of Justice, Sevin moved to New Caledonia, settling in Nouméa. In 1964 the regional national assembly was divided into separate regional national assemblies with one based in Honiara, serving the South West Pacific Ocean (Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Loyalty Is, New Hebrides). Later in 1971, the Solomon Islands