Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea takes in the eastern half of New Guinea, the world’s second-largest island, plus hundreds of lesser islands. A spine of ranges runs down the mainland to Mount Wilhelm, enclosing broad, fertile highland valleys. The Sepik meanders across the northern swamps and the Fly drains a vast southern floodplain. On New Britain the volcanoes at Rabaul buried much of the town in 1994, and rainforest shelters tree kangaroos and cassowaries.

People reached New Guinea when low seas joined it to Australia. At Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands, ancient ditches show farmers raising taro and bananas thousands of years ago, one of the few places where agriculture began independently. In 1884 Germany claimed the north-east and Britain the south, which passed to Australia in 1906; Australia took the German half in 1914. Gold prospectors entering the highlands in the 1930s found valleys of farmers unknown to outsiders. Independence came in September 1975.

Hundreds of languages are spoken, often one to a valley, and loyalty to one’s wantok, those who share a tongue, shapes daily life. At the Goroka and Mount Hagen shows, highland clans dance in feathered headdresses and face paint. Feasts are cooked in a mumu, an earth oven of hot stones, and rugby league draws the biggest crowds. Most families grow their own food; the exports are copper and gold from Ok Tedi, Porgera and Lihir, natural gas, coffee, cocoa and palm oil.