Talk:Pacific Islands

Table of Islands

• I think it would make the page better if all the islands in the pacific would be presented in a table like the one i started on the actual page where on each island the could be most common information about them so viewers can easily find statistics about them. --88.109.191.189 10:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree area and population would be nice to be here, so you can see at a glance which are the most significant. I don't really see the reason for the currency, as it will mainly reflect sovereignty (independence or colonial status) which is designated in a different way. It would be nice if the separate islands in each group were grouped together more than the first one you entered is. Rigadoun (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you would like such a table, but many of these islands are rims of reefs or are uninhabited and/or their size varies significantly between high and low tides. I will remove the table for now, due to its incompleteness and the aforementioned problems.Hypershock (talk) 12:07, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

That's true about the size, although it could be fixed by having a size at high tide and low tide, or something like that. The permanent populations are probably pretty stable, although you're right that many of them are zero. Until this is all done, though, you're right, it makes sense to remove the table. Rigadoun (talk) 18:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Rename this page

This page explicitly states it is focusing on islands of Oceania, and is excluding, e.g. Japanese islands and all near-coastal islands (and some, like Alejandro Selkirk Island which are anything _but_ near coastal). Therefore this page should be titled, e.g. "List of Islands of Oceania"

Additionally, the page List of islands in the Pacific Ocean should be resurrected, and should be organized as a list of island groups in the pacific ocean. Aldenrw (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

"The exact number has yet to be precisely determined"

Does this statement mean that even today we can't figure the number? I would imagine that with satellite images that would be en easy task. Avihu (talk) 18:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Timor a Pacific Island?

Timor is on this list. Since the Pacific ends at the Torres Strait, I would think not, and will remove it unless someone can come up with a good reason for keeping it here. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 15:50, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Done Andrewgprout (talk) 08:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

What about the north Pacific?

This article is almost entirely devoted to South Pacific islands - Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. But there are plenty of other islands in the Pacific. What about Japan, Philippines, Sakhalin, Kuril Islands, Aleutian Islands, etc.? Is there any specific reason why these are omitted? If not, then perhaps this article should be renamed to South Pacific Islands, or something similar. Bazonka (talk) 09:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Well technically speaking the South Pacific consists of the Oceanian countries except for Palau, Marshall islands, and the Federated states of Micronesia. This article seems to be written to cover just islands in Oceania. However, you are right, there are other islands in the pacific. If you want to create a new section about nonoceanian islands, go ahead I guess! Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(written at the same time as the reply above -- edit conflict) Your point is well taken -- and has been raised before, without enthusiasm, see above. This article focuses on the members of the Pacific Islands Forum -- Oceania and excludes others. Perhaps a bold editor will either rename it or add the islands that you mention above and others. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk to me • contribs) 11:06, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Map

A map would be good. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.223.124 (talk) 11:21, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

the term European Islands

calling these Islands European Islands is inaccurate and possibly offensive as they are not in Europe and the populations are not entirely European either. The islands are administered by European nations ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.58.125.170 (talk) 17:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Edits regarding "name ambiguity" section

Please resolve the conflict relating to whether or not there is ambiguity over the use of the term "Pacific Islands", which generally refers to Pacific Island Countries and Territories (i.e. Fiji, New Caledonia, Hawai'i, Tonga, New Zealand, Guam). In current use, the term "Pacific Islands" generally does not include such islands as those listed in this article's section on "Name ambiguity" (i.e. the Aleutian Islands in Alaska; Vancouver Island in Canada; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril; Taiwan and other islands of the Republic of China; the Philippines; islands in the South China Sea; most of the islands of Indonesia; and the island nation of Japan). I cited several books, articles, and a web page which use the term "Pacific Islands" in tandem with Oceania, excluding the islands mentioned above. I am prepared to provide additional citations to support this assertion. I also know this usage to be current, as I live on a Pacific Island, and have been traveling the region and a resident here for the past several years. Andrewgprout, I note the discussion on your talk page about your reverting language relating to "Pacific Islands" and "Pacific Islanders". I respectfully request that you resolve the disagreement relating specifically to the geographic entity of the "Pacific Islands" on this talk page rather than letting this progress into an edit war. (Also pinging 150.210.231.30.) Thanks! - tucoxn\^talk 09:27, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Tucoxn, why do you call "Even islands in the Pacific Oceans comprised by the Austronesian nations are significant larger than the Pacific Islands; for instance, one can hardly tell the differences between an islander of Guam and an islander of other Pacific Islands" a racist sentence? Did you think I was a Mongoloid racist or Australoid racist? Also I don't see any grammatical problem except for a non-grammatical problem that there's some logical link missing between the two sentences connected by "for instance". --150.210.231.30 (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

150.210.231.30, you're combining two questions into one, making me give a complicated answer. Here's the sentence I removed: "Even islands in the Pacific Oceans comprised by the Austronesian nations are significant larger than the Pacific Islands; for instance, one can hardly tell the differences between an islander of Guam and an islander of other Pacific Islands."

• Question 2) Why is it a grammatically problematic sentence? There are many grammar and vocabulary problems in this sentence. First, this sentence mentions the "Pacific Oceans" – generally, the Pacific Ocean is thought of as one contiguous ocean and the debate on separating the North Pacific (wikilink redirects to Pacific Ocean) and South Pacific is unrelated to the content of this sentence. Second, the sentence might say, "islands in the Pacific Ocean comprised by..." but this should probably be "inhabited by" or something else – "comprised by" is similar to "composed of" or "containing" and could be used in the following way: "The Pacific Islands are generally considered to be comprised by the Micronesian sub-region, the Melanesian sub-region, and the Polynesian sub-region." Third (skipping the problem of "Austronesian" being a linguistic term, to be dealt with below), "significant" is an adjective but this sentence uses it as an adverb, modifying "larger" – perhaps the correct term to be used would be "significantly". Fourth, The sentence uses a semicolon to join two unrelated (i.e. missing logical link) independent clauses. "A semicolon can be used between two closely related independent clauses." Fifth, the sentence's second clause begins with "one" as a subject – on Wikipedia this would normally beg use of Template:Who, "for placement after attributions to vague authorities".
• Question 1) Why do I call that a racist sentence? To dispel any ad hominem attacks, I'm not calling you a racist, Mongoloid, Australoid, or otherwise (as you inferred above) – simply the sentence. First, "Austronesian" is a linguistic term, referring to Austronesian-speaking peoples – the people who speak the many Austronesian languages are incredibly diverse (see List of Austronesian regions), and shouldn't be lumped together in this article on geography. Second, the populations (even the islanders) living in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories are also very diverse – to say that they are composed merely of Micronesians, Melanesians, and Polynesians is oversimplifying the situation... even the Micronesians speak 20 different languages and have a variety of cultural differences. Therefore, it is racist (prejudice based on social perceptions of biological differences between peoples) and simply incorrect to say that a person can hardly tell the difference between a Guamanian and an islander of another Pacific Island (such as Fijians or Māori). This does not even consider the Fiji Indians (who may or may not be considered "islanders" depending on the point of view), who are also different, ethnically and culturally.

Finally, this is a sentence about "Pacific Islanders" (the people who live on Pacific Islands) and not about the Pacific Islands themselves. There is a separate article dedicated to Pacific Islanders, where such a topic could potentially be included. As such, and considering the above, this sentence has no place in this article. - tucoxn\^talk 01:28, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Whatever I agree or disagree with you about, your comments helped me a lot.

• Concerning the grammar, it can't be more clear than that. I didn't realize the first three grammatical problems you've mentioned. I also agree with you that the semicolon and the conjunction are problematic. However, I don't see how "one" may trigger Template:Who. Template:Who is used for claims on the pretext of an uncertain person, not for a meaningless subject (to see this, you can change both "one" to "you" and the meaning of the sentence will not change). Anyway, I agree with you that the use of "one" might result in a bad writing style nevertheless I don't there's any weasel word issues. I don't think Template:By whom should be used in the following way, do you?

“ A knight should always be close to where the action is, meaning it is best used on areas of the board where the opponent's pieces are clustered or close together. ”

• Though you claimed it to be a non-ad hominem attack, the argument didn't make much sence to me because instead of claiming it to be a racism sentence or a sentence involving racism, you claimed it to be a racist sentence or a sentence involving a racist. I cannot imagine who this "racist" should be other than me. Even if you really meant "a sentence involving racism", by saying I said a sentence involving racism you were accusing me for manipulating racism, or prejudice based on social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. So please indeed specify what biological difference(s) I used to discriminate someone? Did I discriminate those Austronesians whose skin are red, did I discriminate those Austronesians whose skin are brown, or did I discriminate those Austronesians whose skin are white? Or if I had practice discrimination by some other biological difference(s), please tell me. If you cannot point out what prejudice I used/manipulated based on any perceptions of any biological difference by writing that sentence, please don't use the word "racism" on me or on that sentence, please? Nobody wants to be accused without any mistake committed.

I sincerely agree with you that Austronesians are diverse, but I don't agree with the fragmentation of Austronesian and Papuan nations. They have incredibly similar forms or art and culture. Their belief, practices living-styles and folk-songs are of consistency, even more consistent than the First Nations, so the usage of words Austronesian and Papuan nations does not cause a problem. —150.210.231.30 (talk) 01:06, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Frankly the issue I intend to address by writing that sentence is: as there's no point to show a (cultural, religious, racial, etc.) line between Pacific Islands Austronesian-and-Papuan nations, and non-Pacific-Islands Austronesian nations, the concept of "Pacific Islands" cannot be a cultural geographic concept (e.g. Inner Asia), a religious geographic concept (e.g. Muslim world), or a racial geographic concept (e.g. the so-called "Black Africa"). It can only be a geopolitical concept, a result of European colonization history: they're one of the last islands "discovered" by Europeans.

I understand that my sentence is somewhat ambiguous so that it feels like a racist sentence to you. I'm trying to rewrite it into a encyclopedic, less ambiguous sentence. —150.210.231.30 (talk) 01:06, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

150.210.231.30, I'm looking forward to seeing the proposed re-write. Please post it here, on this talk page, for further discussion. Again, I am not calling you a racist. I also agree that the concept of "Pacific Islands" is a physical geography concept (distinct from the human geography fields of political geography and geopolitics). Please keep politics to the respective country and international relations pages (such as Kiribati or Fiji–Tonga relations for example), as countries are political (human geography) entities. - tucoxn\^talk 20:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• You might haven't called me a racist, but you called that "a racist sentence". What I was saying was: you cannot say that unless it discriminate someone with biological difference(s). If that sentence did so, please point out what biological difference(s) it applied to discriminate someone; if not, please withdraw it. I understood that you might be unintentional and I'm sorry to be poignant but I'd still say that the modern American habit of indiscreetly labeling something "racist" is very disrespectful and awful (I sympathize with the American racist history but I don't think that should be an excuse for indiscreetly labeling).
• I still don't get how this is a physical geographical concept.
• Here's my rewritten version:

“ The three groups of Pacific Islands defined by Oceania are inhabited by various Austronesian and Papuan Nations. Although the Papuan Nations are exclusively inhabited in this area, the Austronesian Nations are not, and the cultural, linguistic, racial and religious differences between Austronesians not inhabited in the Pacific Islands and the Austronesians inhabited in the Pacific Islands can be smaller than those between Austronesians in the Pacific Islands.[CITE example] Geographically, the distance between those westernmost Pacific Islands, and the adjacent Philippines and the rest of Indonesia is smaller than that of two adjacent Pacific Islands.[CITE data] In other words, a depiction of the Pacific Islands can be hardly gotten from a (physical) geographic or anthropological perspective and the very concept of the Pacific Islands can only be explained as an ad hoc partition inspired by the stereotype from early European colonizers and a result from the early modern history of colonization and decolonization. ”

• P.S. Perhaps "linguistic" is an exception, if we consider Rapa Nui a Pacific Island and limit our scope within Austronesian languages. However, if we depict "Pacific Islands" as "islands inhabited by Oceanic-speakers", the Papua island will be excluded.

--150.210.231.30 (talk) 00:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• I stand by my comment that the sentence, "one can hardly tell the differences between an islander of Guam and an islander of other Pacific Islands", is a racist sentence, even given the definition of racist being that it discriminates against someone because of biological differences. This sentence seems to combine different peoples together based on their looks; therefore it is racist.
• I cannot support the inclusion of the proposed new paragraph. I do not agree with the sentences' grammatical structures and I am not willing to try to fix them to make the paragraph understandable at an appropriate level (see also: Plain English). I cannot support the assertions made by the sentences that are lacking citations. The assertion about the Philippines and Indonesia is not on topic for this article's "Name ambiguity" section (where this language is proposed to be included); it is also too specific and therefore not appropriate for the article's lead section. Finally, this article is about a physical geography concept (a list of islands in the Pacific Ocean) and I do not agree with adding the final sentence, which seems to say that the article is actually about a human geography concept (that the idea of the Pacific Ocean is a construct inspired by a stereotype from early European colonizers). In addition to my disagreement with the concept, this seems to be original research or synthesis and does not have a place in Wikipedia articles (see also: Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought).
• Adequate Wikipedia consensus to add this language may be obtainable but I am not interested in becoming part of that. You are welcome to establish consensus to add this language without me but, for now, I am not interested in being convinced further. - tucoxn\^talk 03:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

What is this article really about?

The article should specify its topic to either all islands in the Pacific Ocean or the three archipelagos. In the current setting, Pacific Islanders are defined to be the people of the Pacific Islands, but the article Pacific Islands contains something about all islands in the Pacific Ocean. This may cause the misunderstandings that Japanese people are Pacific Islanders. —150.210.231.30 (talk) 02:05, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

yes there is an issue here - there are plenty of Pacific Islands in the Pacific, and each one of them can be considered a Pacific Island in a very broad definition. This appears to be the overall definition the list of islands has taken on this page. However there are other generally used definitions of what a Pacific island is that do exclude many "pacific islands" - these more restricted definitions vary but tend to include all the islands not covered by another definition which in practice tend to be the ones not close to the Asian (Japan, Philippines?) or American (Aleutian, Vancouver, Channel Islands) continents or one of the the south East Asian Islands (Sulawesi) - and excluding Australia - which strangely is generally considered to be in Oceania but not a pacific island. These definitions vary and live together often being used by the same people based on context. As a personal example - I live on a Pacific Island which is clearly a Pacific Island in every definition, however I can still say I'm going to "The {Pacific] islands" for a holiday and that means I'm going on an aeroplane to somewhere (else) in Polynesia rather than Te Wai Pounamu or Waiheke. I think the best thing to do here is to keep the page in general to include the list of all possible islands in the tradition of all inclusive Wikipedia lists (I suspect this is how the page started), but emphasise the more precise definition - as it already does. The name ambiguity paragraph can stay if consensus agrees but will need to be edited. the "in English" presupposes that "English" has one definition and it clearly does not. And umbrella term is also wrong as the umbrella term is the broadest definition which it currently isn't defined that way in the article.... I will have a go at editing this. Andrewgprout (talk) 04:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Andrewgprout that this page should include the list of all possible islands in the tradition of all inclusive Wikipedia lists, emphasizing the the more precise definition. Let's work together to get this right. Also Andrewgprout, [Meri Kirihimete] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: mao (help) and [Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: mao (help)! - tucoxn\^talk 21:53, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• If that's the case, the article should be split and a disambiguation page should be added. Please refer the case Central Asia vs. Inner Asia. --150.210.231.30 (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Where is Vancouver Island?

?????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.99.3 (talk) 04:24, 15 March 2017‎ (UTC)

Vancouver Island is in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, just off the coast of Canada. Coordinates: 49°30′N 125°30′W. - tucoxn\^talk 16:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Pacific Islands and List of islands in the Pacific Ocean be merged into a single article. Both articles talk about the same thing. 192.107.120.90 (talk) 19:20, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Comment This article's lead section is about the the three regions of Oceania, (Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia), the third section is a list Pacific islands by area, and the rest of the article is collection of lists of Islands in the Pacific Ocean. I propose splitting the lead section into the Oceania article, and splitting the rest into a List of islands in the Pacific Ocean. SpanishSnake (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't see exactly what there is in the lede worth splitting that isn't already in Oceania. I believe the intent of listing those three regions is to convey to the reader that there are three distinct sub-groups of "Pacific Islands". It should stay. DA1 (talk) 20:53, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Per the Merger, Merger/Split proposals above, I intend to merge the text portion of this article into the Pacific Islander article, and the list portion into List of islands in the Pacific Ocean very soon. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 12:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)