Polynesia
Polynesia[a] (UK: /ˌpɒlɪˈniːziə/ POL-in-EE-zee-ə, US: /-ˈniːʒə/ -EE-zhə) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in common, including language relatedness, cultural practices, and traditional beliefs.[1] In centuries past, they had a strong shared tradition of sailing and using stars to navigate at night.[2][3]
This article is about the wider region in the Pacific. For the French collectivity, see French Polynesia. For the genus of moth, see Polynesia (moth). For the point of land in the South Orkney Islands, see Signy Island.The term Polynésie was first used in 1756 by the French writer Charles de Brosses, who originally applied it to all the islands of the Pacific. In 1831, Jules Dumont d'Urville proposed a narrower definition during a lecture at the Société de Géographie of Paris. By tradition, the islands located in the southern Pacific have also often been called the South Sea Islands,[4] and their inhabitants have been called South Sea Islanders. The Hawaiian Islands have often been considered to be part of the South Sea Islands because of their relative proximity to the southern Pacific islands, even though they are in fact located in the North Pacific. Another term in use, which avoids this inconsistency, is "the Polynesian Triangle" (from the shape created by the layout of the islands in the Pacific Ocean). This term makes clear that the grouping includes the Hawaiian Islands, which are located at the northern vertex of the referenced "triangle".
Inter-Polynesian cooperation[edit]
The first major attempt at uniting the Polynesian islands was by Imperial Japan in the 1930s, when various theorists (chiefly Hachirō Arita) began promulgating the idea of what would soon become known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Under the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, all nations stretching from Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia to Oceania would be united under one, large, cultural and economic bloc which would be free from Western imperialism. The policy theorists who conceived it, along with the Japanese public, largely saw it as a pan-Asian movement driven by ideals of freedom and independence from Western colonial oppression. In practice, however, it was frequently corrupted by militarists who saw it as an effective policy vehicle through which to strengthen Japan's position and advance its dominance within Asia. At its greatest extent, it stretched from Japanese occupied Indochina in the west to the Gilbert Islands in the east, although it was originally planned to stretch as far east as Hawaii and Easter Island and as far west as India. This never came to fruition, however, as Japan was defeated during World War II and subsequently lost all power and influence it had.[90][91]
After several years of discussing a potential regional grouping, three sovereign states (Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu) and five self-governing but non-sovereign territories formally launched, in November 2011, the Polynesian Leaders Group, intended to cooperate on a variety of issues including culture and language, education, responses to climate change, and trade and investment. It does not, however, constitute a political or monetary union.[92][93][94]
