Duke of York Island, Papua New Guinea

The Duke of York Island (formerly also Amacata or Amakada, colonial German Duke of York ), is an island of Papua New Guinea. It belongs to the same group of the Duke of York Islands, which is located in the western Pacific between the far larger islands of New Britain and New Ireland in the west to the east.

The coral island is consistently flat and has an area of ​​almost 52 km ². Large bays are found on the west coast (about Foul Bay ).

1767 saw the British navigator Philip Carteret, the island and renamed it and the surrounding islands in honor of the then Duke of York (Duke of York). In 1884 they became a German colony, after the First World War, it fell to Britain and since 1975 they belong to the State of Papua New Guinea.

The Duke of York Island and its neighboring islands are in a vulnerable by floods, earthquakes and tsunami zone. In 2000, therefore, the relocation of many inhabitants of the islands was announced on higher ground of the islands of New Britain and New Ireland in order to avoid dead in a possible decrease in the archipelago.