Portal:Oceania/Selected article/January, 2007

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The island and province Bougainville is part of Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Solomon Islands group. Its capital is Arawa. Bougainville, the adjacent island of Buka, and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets are sometimes known as North Solomons. Together they make up the Papua New Guinean province of Bougainville. The population is 175,160 (2000 census).

The island is ecologically and geographically, although not politically, part of the Solomon Islands. Buka, Bougainville, and most of the Solomons are part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion.

Bougainville is rich in copper and gold. A large mine was established at Panguna in the early 1970s by Bougainville Copper Limited, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. By the end of its operations on May 15, 1989 it was the largest open-cut mine in the world; it was also a major catalyst in the unrest in Bougainville in the 1970s and 1980s.