Located in the South Pacific, New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland. Divided roughly in half, the western side comprises the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Irian, while the eastern half is known as Papua New Guinea.

Linguistically, New Guinea is the world's most diverse country, with over 1,000 local tongues and as many different tribal groups. The human presence on the island dates back at least 40,000 years to the oldest human migrations out of Africa and many New Guineans continue to live the same subsistence lifestyles they did thousands of years ago. Many are below the poverty line, despite living in areas of abundant natural resources such as gas, oil and precious minerals including copper and gold. The bird fauna is culturally important to Ne

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