Oceania comprises a "sea of islands" within 181 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean (approximately one third of the earth's surface). At the beginning of the third millennium, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia had a total population of thirty million people, which is only half of one percent of the world population. Yet there are almost one thousand distinct languages spoken in Oceania, or about a quarter of the world's languages. Language diversity is indicative of the cultural, social, and historical diversity of the region. Oceania is commonly divided into three main cultural groupings: Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. New Zealand is included in Polynesia. While the Australian subcontinent geographically lies outside Oceania, indigenous Australians (1.5% of the Australian population), have cultural ties with Oceania. Formerly, traditional religions predominated; today, however, over 90 percent of the people of Oceania profess to be Christian.

The first...