Geography of New Caledonia Geography of New Caledonia The geography of New Caledonia ("Nouvelle-Calédonie"), an overseas collectivity of France located in the subregion of Melanesia, makes the continental island group unique in the southwest Pacific. Among other things, the island chain has played a role in preserving unique biological lineages from the Mesozoic. It served as a waystation in the expansion of the predecessors of the Polynesians, the Lapita culture. Under the Free French it was a vital naval base for Allied Forces during the War in the Pacific. The archipelago is located east of Australia, north of New Zealand, south of the Equator,
Solomon Islands (archipelago) Solomon Islands (archipelago) The Solomon Islands are an archipelago in the western South Pacific Ocean, located northeast of Australia. They are in the Melanesia subregion and bioregion of Oceania. The archipelago forms much of the territory of Solomon Islands, while the northwestern islands are within the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in eastern Papua New Guinea. It forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The Solomon Islands consist of both volcanic islands of varying activity and of coral atolls. Bougainville Island is the largest in the archipelago. The climate of the islands is tropical, however temperatures do not greatly fluctuate