New Caledonia Their social organization is traditionally based around clans, which identify as either "land" or "sea" clans, depending on their original location and the occupation of their ancestors. According to the 2009 census, the Kanak constitute 94% of the population in the Loyalty Islands Province, 74% in the North Province and 27% in the South Province. The Kanak tend to be of lower socio-economic status than the Europeans and other settlers. Europeans first settled in New Caledonia when France established a penal colony on the archipelago. Once the prisoners had completed their sentences, they were given land to settle. According to
Biodiversity of New Caledonia the view of the island as a surviving fragment of the Cretaceous period is obsolete. Islands from that time are partly or fully submerged. Most modern New Caledonian terranes formed via accretion of oceanic island arcs and seamounts. The biota evolved as metapopulations on islands that changed constantly until they merged into the archipelago. This hypothesis that the islands and their biota emerged some 30 MYA during the Oligocene better explains the organisms that occur in New Caledonian biota. In the Carboniferous and Permian, New Zealand and New Caledonia were on the periphery of Gondwana, which included Africa, South America,