Torres Strait Islands
The Torres Strait Islands are a group of islands in the Torres Strait sea passage between the northern tip of Australia, Cape York, and the south coast of Papua New Guinea. They mainly belong to the Australian state of Queensland. Some islands along the south coast of New Guinea belong to the Western Province of Papua New Guinea.
Among them are more than 270 islands, of which only 21 are inhabited (19 on the Australian side and Daru and Parama Iceland on the Papua New Guinea side). Main island is on the Australian side Thursday Iceland ( Waiben ). Daru as a provincial capital of the Western Province of New Guinea is still much larger. The largest area of the island is the south adjacent and sparsely populated Prince of Wales Iceland.
See also: List of Torres Strait Islands
History
The islands were until about 6000 years part of the land bridge between New Guinea and Australia. About 1000 years ago it was inhabited by Melanesian sailors.
In 1606, six months before Luiz Vaez de Torres, after these islands were named, discovered the Dutchman Willem Janszoon with his ship, the Duyfken the islands. 1770 the Torres Strait Islands were occupied British under James Cook as part of Australia.
Political Structure
The predominantly to Australia scoring islands of the Torres Strait Islands ( some northern islands such as Daru belonging to Papua New Guinea, they are close to the coast) belong administratively to the municipality of Torres Shire and from north to south into five administrative units ( island regions ) divided into:
Population
On the islands, in addition to the official language English, among other Mabuiag, Meriam and the common language spoken Creole Torres ( one related to Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea creole ). 2001 was the number of inhabitants of all the islands, with the exception of Papua New Guinea and adjacent islands Daru Parama, to 8,069. Of these, 6,214 Torres Strait Islanders ( Melanesian or Papuan ) or Aboriginals.
The islands have been suffering for some time from persistent migration on the Australian mainland.