Loyalty Islands Province Province des îles Loyauté | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
 Location of Loyalty Islands Province in New Caledonia | |
| Coordinates:21°04′S167°21′E / 21.067°S 167.350°E /-21.067; 167.350 | |
| Country | France |
| Collectivity | New Caledonia |
| Seat | Wé (Lifou) |
| Government | |
| • President | Jacques Lalié |
| Area | |
• Total | 1,980.9 km2 (764.8 sq mi) |
| Population (2019) | |
• Total | 18,353 |
| • Density | 9.2650/km2 (23.996/sq mi) |
| Ethnic Groups (2019) | |
| • Kanak | 94.63% |
| • Multiracial | 2% |
| • European | 1.74% |
| • Ni-Vanuatu | 0.09% |
| • Wallisians and Futunans | 0.08% |
| • Indonesians | 0.05% |
| • Other Asian | 0.02% |
| • Tahitians | 0.01% |
| • Vietnamese | 0.01% |
| • Other | 1.38% |
| Languages | Drehu,Iaai,Nengone |
| Website | province-iles |
Loyalty Islands Province (French:Province des îles Loyauté,pronounced[pʁɔvɛ̃sdez‿illwajote]) is one of the three top-leveladministrative subdivisions ofNew Caledonia. It encompasses theLoyalty Islands (French:Îles Loyauté)archipelago in thePacific Ocean, located northeast of theNew Caledonian mainland ofGrande Terre.
The provincial government seat is atLifou. The Loyalty Islands are acollectivité territoriale of France. The province's 2019 population was approximately 18,353 inhabitants living on almost 2,000 km2 (770 sq mi). The native inhabitants areMelanesians who speak variousKanak languages andPolynesians who speak theFagauvea language.
The first Western contact on record is attributed to British CaptainWilliam Raven of the whalerBritannia, who was on his way in 1793 fromNorfolk Island toBatavia (now calledJakarta). It is very likely, however, that the discovery and name originated with officials on the London shipLoyalty, which was on a Pacific Ocean trading voyage from 1789 to 1790.[citation needed]
TheFrench Government demanded the removal ofmissionaries from theLondon Missionary Society led by Rev. Samuel Macfarlane[1][2] from the Loyalty Islands andNew Caledonia in 1869. This led to the missionaries travelling to theTorres Strait Islands on the vesselSurprise, in an event still celebrated as "The Coming of the Light", on 1 July 1871.[3][4][5][6]
The archipelago consists of six inhabited islands –Lifou Island,Maré Island,Tiga Island,Ouvéa Island,Mouli Island, andFaiava Island – and several smaller uninhabited islands andislets. Their combined land area is 1,981 km2 (765 sq mi). The highest elevation is at 138 m (453 ft)above sea level on Maré Island. The islands are part of theNew Caledonia rain forests ecoregion. The chief export of the Loyalty Islands iscopra.
Anearthquake of moment magnitude 7.7 was reported just after midnight on11 February 2021 in an area south-east of the islands, with several aftershocks.[7] Over 50 quakes of magnitude greater than 4.5 were recorded in less than 24 hours, and then on the 19 May another quake of the same magnitude happened and caused tsunamis detected byGeoNet's DART (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami) and hit everywhere (mostly) in the Pacific Ocean and another of the same size on 20 May triggering another tsunami warning.
The people of the Loyalty Islands are of mixedMelanesian andPolynesian ancestry, with a small European minority. The population numbered 17,436 in the 2009 census, a 7.9% reduction from the 22,080 in the preceding 2004 census. In 2014 the population grew to 18,297, an increase of 4.9%, and in 2019 the population grew a further 0.1% to 18,353.[8][9]
Several thousand more Loyalty Islanders live on New Caledonia, especially inNouméa, the capital, and in the mining areas of the main island.
The Loyalty Islands Province is divided into threecommunes (municipalities):
As of 2018, there are 14 seats in the province's congress held by six parties: the nationalistCaledonian Union holds four, the anti-independenceRally for Caledonia in the Republic holds two, and theNational Union for Independence-Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, Socialist Kanak Liberation,Renewed Caledonian Union andUnion of Pro-Independence Co-operation Committees each have two.
This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, (MUP), 1974
NZ DART Network Datahttps://www.geonet.org.nz/tsunami/dart
