Solomon Islands

A double chain of Melanesian islands with a name that was wishful thinking, and a modern history dominated by what a war left behind. The Spanish navigator Mendaña named them in 1568 after King Solomon's mines, hoping to attract settlers to gold that was not there. Britain declared a protectorate in 1893, chiefly to control the blackbirding trade that had already taken thousands of islanders to Queensland and Fiji, and then ran the territory minimally on copra plantations. Guadalcanal became the site of the first American offensive of the Pacific war in August 1942, and six months of fighting on the island and in the surrounding sea - where so many ships sank that the strait is called Ironbottom Sound - turned the war's direction. Islanders serving as scouts and carriers saw both empires up close, and the Maasina Ruru movement that followed demanded self-rule and was suppressed. Independence came on 7 July 1978. Tension between Guadalcanal landowners and Malaitan settlers erupted into civil conflict from 1998, ended only by an Australian-led regional intervention that stayed from 2003 to 2017. Logging, largely by foreign companies, is the main export and is stripping the forests fast. Over seventy languages are spoken. Pijin serves as the lingua franca. Honiara on Guadalcanal is the capital, built on the site of the American wartime base. The country has nearly a thousand islands. Rennell's Lake Tegano is a World Heritage site. Malaita is the most populous island. Choiseul and Bougainville are geographically part of the same chain but politically split between two countries.

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