Bougainville: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Bougainville is the largest of the Solomon Islands and is a province of Papua New Guinea.

Bougainville and the adjacent island of Buka are sometimes called the North Solomons, and are ecologically and geographically, although not politically, considered part of the Solomon Islands. Buka, Bougainville, and most of the Solomons are part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion.

History

Main article: History of Bougainville

The island was named after the French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville. During colonial times it came under German administration as part of German New Guinea. Australia, on behalf of the League of Nations administered it from 1918 until independence.

On March 8, 1943 during World War II, American forces were attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 on this island in a battle that lasted five days ending on March 13 with a Japanese retreat.

The island is rich in copper and possibly gold. The Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) ostensibly reclaimed the country from corporate mining interests in the 1980s, in the form of Bougainville Copper Limited, (BCL) an Australian controlled company.

A nine-year secessionist revolt ended in 1997, after claiming some 20,000 lives.