Vanuatu comprises a Y-shaped archipelago of sixty-five inhabited tropical islands located in the Western Pacific. Formerly known as the New Hebrides, the country obtained independence on July 30, 1980. The population, estimated at around 200,000 in 2005, is highly ethno-linguistically diverse, with around 110 indigenous languages spoken in addition to French, British and a Pigin lingua franca called Bislama.

The New Hebrides was originally settled around 3,000 years ago, during the Austronesian migrations from East Asia across the Pacific. From the 1860s onward, "blackbirding" vessels recruited indentured laborers among the islands to work on plantations in Queensland or Fiji, or in a variety of occupations in neighboring New Caledonia (which had become a French colony in 1853). Competition between British and French settlers led to the establishment of a joint Anglo-French Naval Commission in 1887. As part of the Entente Cordiale agreement between Britain and France, in 1906 the country became a jointly run Anglo-French condominium, with...