SOLOMON ISLANDS (Pacific Islands)

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The Solomon Islands chain consists of several large volcanic islands to the south-east of Papua New Guinea. There are also some outlying islands and atolls. The terrain is mountainous and heavily forested.

With its 27,556-square-km area, the Solomons is the second-largest insular nation of the South Pacific (after Papua New Guinea) with 5,313 km of coastline. This thickly forested, mountainous country, 1,860 km northeast of Australia, is made up of six large islands in a double chain (Choiseul, Isabel, Malaita, and New Georgia, Guadalcanal, Makira), about 20 medium-size ones, and numerous smaller islets and reefs--922 islands in all, 347 of them inhabited. The group stretches more than 1,800 km from the Shortlands in the west to Tikopia and Anuta in the east, and nearly 900 km from Ontong Java in the north to Rennell Island in the south. (Rennell is one of the world's largest uplifted atolls, while Ontong Java is the South Pacific's largest true atoll.)

Tinakula, Savo, Simbo, and Vella Lavella are active parts of the circum-Pacific Ring of Fire, and there's a submarine volcano called Kavachi just south of the New Georgia Group which recently emerged above sea level to become a new island. The New Britain Trench, southwest of the chain, marks the point where the Indo-Australian Plate is shoved under the Pacific Plate. This causes frequent earthquakes and uplifting; consequently, many of the Polynesian outliers are elevated atolls.

The other islands are mostly high and volcanic, with luxuriant rainforest shrouding the rugged terrain. Under these conditions road-building is difficult; only Malaita, Makira, and Guadalcanal have fairly extensive networks. The wide coastal plain east of Honiara on Guadalcanal is the only area of its kind in the group. The soil ranges from extremely rich volcanic to relatively infertile limestone. The rivers are fast and straight, and often flood the coastal areas during storms. Geographically and culturally, the northwest islands of Bougainville and Buka belong to the Solomons, but are politically part of Papua New Guinea.

The Solomon Islands are also a scuba divers paradise with World War II recks and a wide variety of coral that features along many of the islands.