Vanuatu

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Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós, who arrived on the largest island, Espíritu Santo, in 1606. Queirós claimed the archipelago for Spain, as part of the colonial Spanish East Indies and named it La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo.

In the 1880s, France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the archipelago, and in 1906, they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides – through an Anglo-French condominium.

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Name and etymology

Vanuatu's name was adopted upon independence in July 1980, replacing the name New Hebrides previously used for the archipelago. Vanuatu is derived from the word vanua, which means "land" or "home" in several Austronesian languages, and the word tu, meaning "to stand" or "remain". According to the country's first prime minister Walter Lini, the name was intended to connote "a country that has stood alone and will continue to stand alone".

There was historically no indigenous name for the archipelago as a whole.

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History

The history of Vanuatu before European colonisation is mostly obscure because of the lack of written sources which predate European contact and because only limited archaeological work has been conducted; Vanuatu's volatile geology and climate are also likely to have destroyed or hidden many prehistoric sites. Archaeological evidence gathered since the 1980s supports the theory that the Vanuatuan islands were first settled about 3,000 years ago, in the period roughly between 1100 BCE and 700 BCE. These were almost certainly people of the Lapita culture.

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Geography

Vanuatu is a Y-shaped archipelago consisting of about 83 relatively small, geologically newer islands of volcanic origin (65 of them inhabited), with about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) between the most northern and southern islands. Two of these islands (Matthew and Hunter) are also claimed and controlled by France as part of the French collectivity of New Caledonia. The country lies between latitudes 13°S and 21°S and longitudes 166°E and 171°E.

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Government

The Republic of Vanuatu is a parliamentary democracy with a written constitution, which declares that the "head of the Republic shall be known as the President and shall symbolise the unity of the nation." The powers of the President of Vanuatu, who is elected for a five-year term by a two-thirds vote of an electoral college, are primarily ceremonial. The electoral college consists of members of Parliament and the presidents of Regional Councils. The President may be removed by the electoral college for gross misconduct or incapacity.

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Economy

Vanuatu was ranked the 173rd safest investment destination in the world in the March 2011 Euromoney Country Risk rankings. In 2015, Vanuatu was ranked the 84th most economically free country by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. The economy grew about 6% in the early 2000s. This is higher than in the 1990s, when GDP rose less than 3%, on average. One report from the Manila-based Asian Development Bank about Vanuatu's economy gave mixed reviews and noted that the economy grew at a 5.9% rate from 2003 to 2007.

Vanuatu became the 185th member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in December 2011.

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Demographics

According to the 2020 census, Vanuatu had a population of 300,019. Men outnumber women, with the population consisting of 151,597 men and 148,422 women in 2020. The population is predominantly rural, but Port Vila and Luganville have tens of thousands of residents. An English coinage termed the inhabitants of Vanuatu as Ni-Vanuatu. The Ni-Vanuatu are primarily of Melanesian descent, with the remainder made up of a mix of Europeans, Asians, and other Pacific islanders. The community of Vietnamese in Vanuatu comprises most of the country's Asian population. The Vietnamese community has declined from 10% of Vanuatu's population in 1929 to about 0.3% (or 1,000 individuals) in 2017.

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Education

The estimated literacy rate of people aged 15–24 years is about 74% according to UNESCO figures. The rate of primary school enrolment rose from 74.5% in 1989 to 78.2% in 1999 and then to 93.0% in 2004 but then fell to 85.4% in 2007. The proportion of pupils completing a primary education fell from 90% in 1991 to 72% in 2004 and up to 78% in 2012.

Port Vila and three other centres have campuses of the University of the South Pacific, an educational institution co-owned by twelve Pacific countries. The campus in Port Vila, known as the Emalus Campus, houses the university's law school.

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Culture

Vanuatu culture may be divided into three major cultural regions. In the north, wealth is established by how much one can give away through a grade-taking system. Pigs, particularly those with rounded tusks, are considered a symbol of wealth throughout Vanuatu. In the centre, more traditional Melanesian cultural systems dominate. In the south, a system involving grants of title with associated privileges has developed. Young men undergo various ceremonies, usually including circumcision.

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