Carteret Islands

Carteret Islands
Tulun
Kilinailau

Map of the atoll
Carteret Islands Tulun Kilinailau Location of Tulun in Papua New Guinea
Geography
Location	Melanesia
Total islands	7
Area	295 km2 (114 sq mi)
Length	25.2 km (15.66 mi)
Width	16.2 km (10.07 mi)
Highest elevation	1.6 m (5.2 ft)
Administration
Papua-New Guinea
Province	Bougainville
District	Central Bougainville
Demographics
Population	2,600 (2006)

The Carteret Islands (also known as Carteret Atoll, Tulun or Kilinailau Islands/Atoll) are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km (53 mi) north-east of Bougainville in the South Pacific. The atoll has a scattering of low-lying islands called Han, Jangain, Yesila, Yolasa and Piul, in a horseshoe shape stretching 30 km (19 mi) in north-south direction, with a total land area of 0.6 square kilometres (0.2 sq mi) and a maximum elevation of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11.1 in) above sea level.

The group is made up of islands collectively named after the British navigator Philip Carteret, who was the first European to discover them, arriving in the sloop Swallow in 1767. As of 2005^[update], about one thousand people live on the islands. Han is the most significant island, with the others being small islets around the lagoon. The main settlement is at Weteili on Han island. The island is near the edge of the large geologic formation called the Ontong Java Plateau.

When visited in 1830 by Benjamin Morrell in the schooner Antarctic, several islands had a native population who were growing several crops. One small island was uninhabited and covered with heavy timber. With the approval of the area's ruler, Morrell's crew began construction on the southwest corner of the island in the northeast part of the atoll, with the intent to harvest snail meat and edible bird nests for the Chinese market.

Departing after a fatal attack on his crew, Morrell named the islands the Massacre Islands.

Food staples have been cultivated: taro and coconut and fishing supports the people. The area had been inhabited for about 1,000 years before European contact in about 1880, when the copra trade and other activities altered the economy and customs. Population grew rapidly in the early 1900s, and overcrowding in the 1930s caused a population decline. Food shortages since the 1960s, in recent times caused by international commercial fishers, caused resettlement of some islanders to the Kuveria area of Bougainville from 1984 through the late 1980s. In the 1990s the islanders were identified as economic refugees. Although taro has been a cultivated crop planted in watered areas, by 2002 that had been forgotten by an island leader who complained about wild taro no longer growing.