Melanesia is a group of islands south-west Pacific, the most closely adjacent to Australia and encompasses its arc from the north-east. These islands are of continental origin, and most of them is, as it were the peaks of mountain ranges, descended into the ocean.
Melanesian island chain begins in the north-west geographic huge island of New Guinea, Irian or the environment. This is the second largest (after Greenland) on the island around the globe. Located east of the Admiralty Islands and Bismarck Archipelago, New Britain, or, further to the south-east - Solomon Islands, still further in the same direction - a small group of Santa Cruz, south of it - the New Hebrides with you on-Banks and Torres and, finally, on the southern edge of Melanesia - New Caledonia with the adjoining islands of Lo-yalti and Cooney, or Pine. The eastern archipelagos of Melanesia, Fiji, those islands are considered sometimes as a transition to Polynesia.
The total surface of the islands of Melanesia - up to 980 km2: this is more than three-fourths of the total area of the islands of Oceania together, - the part of Polynesia and Micronesia, there is less than one quarter.
The islands of Melanesia are much closer ~ than the smaller islands in the eastern part of Oceania. The distance between them measured only in tens of kilometers, and even less, a distance of hundreds of kilometers are very rare. In many cases, nearby islands are visible from the shores.
