Portal:Oceania

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The Oceania Portal

Oceania is a geographical (often geopolitical) region consisting of numerous countries and territories—mostly islands—in the Pacific Ocean. The exact scope of Oceania is controversial, with varying interpretations including East Timor, Australia, and New Zealand.

The primary use of the term Oceania is to describe a continental region (like Europe or Africa) that lies between Asia and the Americas, with Australia as the major land mass. The name Oceania is used, rather than Australasia, because unlike the other continental groupings, it is the ocean rather than the continent that links the nations together. Oceania is the smallest continental grouping in land area and the second smallest, after Antarctica, in population.

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The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is a Micronesian island nation in the western Pacific Ocean. The country consists of 29 atolls and 5 isolated islands. The most important atolls and islands form two groups: the Ratak Chain and the Ralik Chain (meaning "sunrise" and "sunset" chains).

Two-thirds of the nation's population of 56,429 (2003) lives on Majuro (which is also the capital) and Ebeye. The outer islands are sparsely populated due to lack of employment opportunities and economic development. Life on the outer atolls is generally still fairly traditional.

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Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the nineteenth century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It has not been deciphered despite numerous attempts. If rongorongo does prove to be writing, it would be one of only three or four known independent inventions of writing in human history.

Some two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions, some heavily weathered, burned, or otherwise damaged, were collected in the late 19th century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. None remain on Easter Island.

The objects are mostly tablets made from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but also include a chieftain's staff, a bird-man statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. There are a few very short petroglyphs which may also be rongorongo. Oral history suggests that only a small elite were ever literate, and that the tablets were sacred.

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