Oceania is a region made up of several islands located in the tropical portion of the Pacific Ocean, between Asia and the Americas. It covers an area of 8.54 million square kilometers and has a population of 36 million people. Its largest cities are Adelaide, Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Perth.
The word Oceania is derived from a Greek word that means ocean, and was coined by a geographer named Conrad Malte-Brun in 1812. Sometimes, the term is used to refer to the area where Australia and some nearby islands lie; to the Pacific ecozone, where Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia are located; or to the Australasian ecozone, which is composed of Australasia and Wallacea.
Oceania includes portions of Australia, Eurasia, Zealandia, some volcanic Philippine islands, and Wallacea. It goes as far as the Bonin Islands to the northwest, the Hawaiian Islands to the northeast, the Sala y Gomez Island and Rapa Nui to the east, Sumatra to the west, and the Macquarie Island to the south. It does not include any island in the Japanese archipelago, the Aleutian Islands, and Taiwan.
The area is divided into four main regions, and they are Melanesia, which includes the countries Fiji, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea; Australasia, which is made up territories such as of Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Coral Sea Islands; Micronesia, where Guam, Palau, Northern Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Micronesia, and Wake Island, are a part of; and Polynesia, which includes Samoa, Hawaii, Easter Island, Cook Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Pitcairn Islands, Niue, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and Tuvalu.
There are 28 official languages in the Oceania region, including English, French, Hindi, Spanish, Chamorro, Samoan, Hawaiian, Palauan, Fijian, Futunan, Cook Islands Maori, Hiri Motu, Carolinian, Pitkern, Tongan, Wallisian, Bislama, Marshallese, Nauruan, and Tahitian.