105 World Islands Reference Guide

Prof. Kneifel is 86 years old and has travelled extensively throughout his life. He has visited many islands in Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. This publication focuses exclusively on island countries. There are estimated to be at least one million islands on Earth, ranging from Greenland, the largest island, to tiny Pacific islets only a few metres across. Islands are not mere fragments of land adrift in the sea; they are concentrated worlds of memory, language, ritual and adaption. Polynesia spans a vast triangle of the Pacific whose corners are often identified as Hawaii, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Micronesia compromises a dense scattering of atolls and reef islands across the western Pacific, including Palau, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia. Melanesia names the islands arc north and East of Australia that includes Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.