Pre-Trip Information

 

The island of New Guinea is composed of the nation of Papua New Guinea in the east and Irian Jaya, declared a province of Indonesia in 1969, in the west. The term "New Guinea" commonly refers to both the northern two-thirds of the main island of Papua New Guinea and to the entire island.

 

The overall population density is low, although pockets of overpopulation exist. Papua, with almost half the area of Papua New Guinea, has only 20 percent of the population. The Western Province of Papua averages one person per square kilometer (2.6 per sq. mi.). Chimbu province in the New Guinea highlands averages 20 people per square kilometer (52 per sq. mi.), and has some areas containing up to 200 people per square kilometer of land. The highlands have 40 percent of the population.

 

A considerable urban drift toward Port Moresby and other major centers has occurred in recent years. Between 1978 and 1988, Port Moresby grew nearly eight percent per year, Lae six percent, Mount Haven 6.5 percent, Goroka four percent, and Madang three percent. The trend towards urbanization accelerated in the 1990s and early 2000s, bringing in its wake squatter settlements, unemployment and social problems.

 

Foreign residents are just over one percent of the population. More than half are Australian; others are from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the Philippines and the United States. Since independence in 1975, about 900 foreigners have become naturalized citizens.

 

 

The indigenous population of Papua New Guinea is one of the most heterogeneous in the world. Papua New Guinea has several thousand separate communities, most with only a few hundred people. The isolation created by mountainous terrain is so great that some communities, until recently, were unaware of the existence of neighboring groups only a few kilometers away.

 

Divided by language, customs and tradition, some of these communities have engaged in tribal warfare with their neighbors for centuries. In terms of ethnicity, the range includes Papuan, Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian and Negrito groups.

 

A few hundred to a few thousand speak native languages, although some 130,000 people speak Enga - primarily in its namesake province. Most native languages are extremely complex grammatically. In New Guinea, about 650 different languages are spoken; of these, only 350-450 are related. The remainder seem to be totally unrelated either to each other or to the other major groupings. A folk saying, "For each village, a different culture," reflects this tremendous diversity. Melanesian Pidgin serves as a lingua franca. English is spoken by educated people and in the Milne Bay province.

 

Almost two-thirds of the population is nominally Christian, though many retain aspects of indigenous religious practices and beliefs. Of the Christian population, more than 700,000 are Catholic, more than 500,000 Lutheran, and the balance are members of other Protestant groups. Although the major churches are under indigenous leadership, a large number of missionaries remain in the country.

 

An estimated 2,500 people from the United States reside in Papua New Guinea, the bulk of them missionaries and their families. The non-Christian portion of the indigenous population practices a wide variety of religions, which are an integral part of traditional culture and consist mainly of animism (spirit worship) and ancestor cults.

The traditional Papua New Guinea social structure includes the following characteristics:

1. The practice of subsistence economy;

2. Recognition of bonds of kinship with obligations extending beyond the immediate family group;

3. Generally egalitarian relationships with an emphasis on acquired, rather than inherited, status;

4. The people's strong attachment to land.

Most Papua New Guineans still adhere strongly to this traditional social structure, which has its roots in village life.

 

 

Health and Welfare

The population of Papua New Guinea has a life expectancy at birth of 66 years of age (male: 63.76 years; female: 68.35 years), and an infant mortality rate of 46.67  deaths per 1,000 live births, according to recent estimates. In terms of literacy, 57 percent of the population, age 15 and over, can read and write; the literacy rate of females is lower, hovering between 50 and 52 percent.

Health expenditures in this country amount to 3.1  percent of GDP.  Availability of drinkable water is reasonably good although more of a challenge in rural areas; access to sanitation facilities is far more of a problem, especially in rural areas. 


Human Development

 

One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed Papua New Guinea in the low human development category, at 137th place.

Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.