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
Languages of New Caledonia Those populations have immigrated to New Caledonia during the nickel rush. The native languages of New Caledonia are part of the Austronesian family. This family extends from the island of Madagascar, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and covers almost all of the Pacific. Those languages have great differences between them (in grammar, phonetic ). English (as a foreign language) is also present in New Caledonia, as everywhere in the world. The forty native languages of New Caledonia form two branches of the Southern Oceanic languages, part of the Austronesian family; West Uvean is Polynesian. Their speakers are known as Kanaks. The most