Top Ten Most Interesting Countries in Oceania

So my favourite youtube channel Geography Now! recently made a video about the pacific island nation of Nauru, one of the least famous countries in the world, located in Oceania. So I thought about doing a list like this, looking at the most interesting countries in Oceania. Australia will be included. Here's the list!
The Top Ten
1 Vanuatu Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu, is a Pacific island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 540 kilometres (340 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, east of New Guinea, southeast of the Solomon Islands, and west of Fiji. ...read more.

I find Vanuatu to be one of the most interesting countries on the planet! The most dangerous country in the world when it comes to natural disasters, and there's tons of volcanoes there as well, as well as forests. Three biggest islands are Espiritu Santo, Malekula and Efates. There's more islands as well, one of the other ones being Ambrym. Capital is Port-Vila and is located on the third biggest island: Efates, president is Tallis Obed Moses and currency is Vatu. Such an interesting country, it was also the first country in Oceania that I actaully did study and try to learn a bit about, there's just tons of interesting things about Vanuatu! It's also located in the most interesting part of Oceania: Melanesia!

2 Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

Everyone saw Australia coming. It's the biggest and most known of the countries in Oceania so of course it would be on here! Before the brits came this country was originally habited by the aboriginal people, the indigenous people of Australia, who are quite interesting in my opinion. Let's not forget the fact that this country is home to tons of rare and unique animals such as koala, kangaroo, dingo and tons of different spiders! Why wouldn't Australia be high up?

3 Samoa The Independent State of Samoa, commonly known as Samoa and formerly known as Western Samoa, is a Unitary Parliamentary Republic with eleven administrative divisions.

This country just screams Polynesia and is kinda the main reason this country is one the list. While I think melanesian culture is overall more fascinating, polynesian culture is more known and impressive in a few ways. Polynesians are known for their clever seafaring skills and the entire island group was back in the day called "Navigator Islands" because of this and this just tells why I need to study more about this country

4 Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is a sovereign country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania lying to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu and covering a land area of 28,400 square kilometres.

The solomon islands surely have an interesting World War II past and one of the best flags in the continent as well. Solomon Islands is located in Melanesia and is the biggest country there (excluding Papua New Guinea) holds loads of interesting facts. Besides, it's located in Melanesia. Melanesia is one of the most interesting places on Earth! There were loads of battles in this country during World War II as well. I don't know too much about this country but enough about it to have it on the list

5 Nauru Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the Central Pacific. It's the third smallest country in the world and the least visited country in the world as well. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 km (190 mi) to the east. It further lies northwest of Tuvalu, 1,300 km (810 mi) northeast of the Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands. With only a 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi) area, Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world behind Vatican City and Monaco, making it the smallest republic. Its population of about 10,000 ...read more.

The third smallest country in the world both in terms of size and population AND the least visited country in the world surely deserves to be high on the list! Because almost no one knows anything about this country, it's twice as interesting as it otherwise kinda would've been. The entire country consists of one island below the equator (hint: the flag) in the middle of Oceania located in Micronesia technically but the natives are a mix between micronesian and polynesian which makes it surely a fascinating country with very interesting cultures. It's also the only country in the world along with Switzerland that doesn't have an official capital city. The city here in which the government is located is Yaren though. This country also used to be very rich, and I mean it once used to be the richest country in the world because of the massive amount of phosphate in the island but it won't last forever and Nauru has grown poorer as time has gone by. Still, a very interesting country

6 Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealand's North Island.

I find it quite interesting how this archipelago is technically located in Melanesia, but the majority of the population are actually polynesians (with melanesians of course as well) and this makes the culture quite interesting if you ask me. Fiji is also known as one of the most beautiful countries in the world I've heard

This is an interesting country alright. I've always been intrigued by it.

7 New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It is situated 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.

New Zeeland. The most interesting. It's miles more interesting than say Vanuatu or Australia, which are in my top three most interesting countries of Oceania. It's godlike. Not only one of the safest countries on earth, but their culture, and history. It's just amazing. You see, the one thing that really makes New Zealand such an interesting place, is without a doubt the maori people. It's a polynesian ethnic people group who are the indigenous people of New Zealand, they are very known for their tatoos, as they are known to have tatoos on their whole body, yeah you know those. So interesting. Just this has to be first on the list. The maori people are kinda what inspired the character "Maui" in the disney movie Moana from 2016, I mean even his name is the same without an "R" in it. Just this is easly the first pick on here.

8 Federated States of Micronesia

Probably one of the more complicated countries on here and one of the more interesting countries of Micronesia, is this country, which I will just call FSoM here for now because it's easier. The geography can't be simplified that much though. It consists of over one thousand islands all of which are micro-scale (pun intended). It's usually divided into four states similar to how the US is divided into fifty states though. These states are Chuuk (the biggest in population), Kosrae (the smallest one), Pohnpei (the biggest one in size) and Yap. All of these though are archipelagos consisting of hundreds and hundreds of islands it's complicated and nearly impossible to memorize all of the islands. Quite fascinating though

9 Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising 169 islands of which 36 are inhabited. The archipelago's total surface area is about 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the southern Pacific Ocean.Tonga stretches across approximately 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north–south line. It is surrounded by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France) to the northwest; Samoa to the northeast; New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu to the west; Niue (the nearest foreign territory) to the east; and Kermadec (New Zealand) to the southwest. Tonga is about 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) from New Zealand's North ...read more.

The most southern of the polynesian countries are Tonga, a country with loads of interesting cultures and history. The islands here have been inhabited in about three thousand years and that proves the culture has evolved and changed a lot since. If only I knew more about this country...

10 Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an Oceanian country that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia.

It's the biggest country in Melanesia as whole and the only one that has a border with Asia (specifically with Indonesia) and it surely has a lot of interesting cultures and history. I don't know too much about it but it seems interesting

The Contenders
11 Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the International Date Line.
12 Tuvalu Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia.

Why is Australia getting any votes? I am Australian, and I think everyone can agree that we are more popular than Tuvalu. I am interested in this country because I know nothing about it. Sure, Australia has a lot of quirks and weird facts about them, but doesn't every country in the world? Tuvalu, Nauru, Palau and Kiribati are four countries which I know literally nothing about, and I'm a geography nerd.

Maybe its because people actually know more stuff about the land down under, but honestly, if you were to learn the same subject for 5 years, would you find it interesting? But if it was your first time and it wasn't hard or boring, then would you be interested?

13 Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation in the central Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is over 119,000 (2020), more than half of whom live on Tarawa atoll. The state comprises 32 atolls and one raised coral island, Banaba. They have a total land area of 811 square kilometres (313 square miles) and are dispersed over 3.5 million km2 (1.4 million sq mi). ...read more.

Have you wondered if there was a country with a total of three different time zones? There is. It's a giant archipelago (one of the biggest in Oceania) located both in Micronesia and Polynesia (although more in the latter) called Kiribati, with one of the most beautiful flags in the world. It's such unfortuanate this country is sinking currently

14 Palau
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