In a narrow sense, Oceania is a term used to refer to Polynesia (including New Zealand), Melanesia (including New Guinea) and Micronesia as a whole. In a wider sense Australia is also counted as forming part of Oceania, and in this sense Oceania is also sometimes seen as a continent. This article uses the wider sense of the term.

Map

See also: World map
.

Countries

Countries of Oceania include:

Territories in Oceania belonging to other continentīs countries include: List of countries/dependencies by population density in inhabitants/km2.

Unlike the figures in the country articles, the figures in this table are based on areas including inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers) and may therefore be lower here.
country pop. dens. area population
  (/kmē) (kmē) (2002-07-01 est.)
Nauru 587 21 12,329
Tuvalu 429 26 11,146
Marshall Islands 407 181 73,630
American Samoa (US) 345 199 68,688
Guam (US) 293 549 160,796
Micronesia 194 702 135,869
Northern Mariana Islands (US) 162 477 77,311
Tokelau (N.Z.) 143 10 1,431
Tonga 142 748 106,137
Kiribati 119 811 96,335
Cook Islands (N.Z.) 87 240 20,811
French Polynesia (Fr.) 62 4,167 257,847
Samoa 61 2,944 178,631
Wallis and Futuna (Fr.) 57 274 15,585
Norfolk Island (Aus) 53 35 1,866
Fiji 47 18,270 856,346
Cocos Islands (Aus) 45 14 632
Palau 42 458 19,409
Solomon Islands 17 28,450 494,786
Vanuatu 16 12,200 196,178
New Zealand 15 268,680 3,908,037
Papua New Guinea 11 462,840 5,172,033
New Caledonia (Fr.) 11 19,060 207,858
Niue (1) 8.2 260 2,134
Christmas Island (Aus) 3.5 135 474
Australia 2.5 7,686,850 19,546,792
Pitcairn Islands (UK) 1.0 47 47

(1) Niue has strong ties with New Zealand

See also: History of Oceania
Oceania is also one of the three super-states in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and is the location of the novel's version of London where Winston Smith, the main character lives.