Bougainville is an island at the Northwestern end of the Solomon Archipelago. Its population is mostly of Melanesian origin, like the population of the rest of the archipelago, but its history is different from the other islands, and it is not part of the country known as Solomon Islands.
When European powers were vying for global supremacy at the end of the Nineteenth Century, this region of the World became disputed between the German Empire and the United Kingdom. A first demarcation was agreed in 1886, which left the three northernmost islands to Germany, and the rest to Great Britain. A few years later, the German protectorate got reduced to the sole Bougainville, and Germany merged this protectorate with their possessions in New Guinea, to the West of the Island. After World War I, the protectorate came under the oversight of Australia, and in 1975, it became an independent nation called Papua-New Guinea.
Due to the major ethnic difference between people from New Guinea and Bougainville, the latter declared its wish to form a separate nation as early as 1975. This was rejected by the government of Papua-New Guinea, and the situation led to an armed conflict that lasted from 1988 to 1997. A peace treaty has since then been signed, and Bougainville is now officially an autonomous region. Future independence remains an option.
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Bougainville in 2022
