PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini; Hiri Motu: Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin: Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; Hiri Motu: Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country in Oceania that occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean north of Australia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The western half of New Guinea forms the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. It is the world's 3rd largest island country with 462,840 km² (178,700 sq mi). The nation has 22 province-level divisions: twenty provinces, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the National Capital District. Each province is divided into one or more districts, which in turn are divided into one or more Local-Level Government areas. At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975. This followed nearly 60 years of Australian administration, which started during World War I. It became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1975 with Elizabeth II as its queen. It also became a member of the Commonwealth of Nations in its own right.

Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country, with over 820 indigenous languages, representing 12% of the world's total, but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken indigenous language is Enga, with about 200,000 speakers, followed by Melpa and Huli. Indigenous languages are classified into two large groups, Austronesian languages and non-Austronesian, or Papuan, languages. There are four languages in Papua New Guinea with some statutory recognition: English, Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, and, since 2015, sign language (which in practice means Papua New Guinean Sign Language). Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. It is also one of the most rural, as only eighteen per cent of its people live in urban centres. There are 851 known languages in the country, of which 11 now have no known speakers. Most of the population of more than 8 million people lives in customary communities, which are as diverse as the languages. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically. It is known to have numerous groups of uncontacted peoples, and researchers believe there are many undiscovered species of plants and animals in the interior.

A secessionist revolt in 1975–76 on Bougainville Island resulted in an eleventh-hour modification of the draft Constitution of Papua New Guinea to allow for Bougainville and the other eighteen districts to have quasi-federal status as provinces. A renewed uprising on Bougainville started in 1988 and claimed 20,000 lives until it was resolved in 1997. The government and rebels negotiated a peace agreement that established the Bougainville Autonomous District and Province. The autonomous Bougainville elected Joseph Kabui as president in 2005, who served until his death in 2008. He was succeeded by his deputy John Tabinaman as acting president while an election to fill the unexpired term was organised. James Tanis won that election in December 2008 and served until the inauguration of John Momis, the winner of the 2010 elections. As part of the current peace settlement, a non-binding independence referendum was held, between 23 November and 7 December 2019. The referendum question was a choice between greater autonomy within Papua New Guinea and full independence for Bougainville, and voters voted overwhelmingly (98.31%) for independence.

Papua New Guinea is a megadiverse country. Many of the other islands within PNG territory, including New Britain, New Ireland, Bougainville, the Admiralty Islands, the Trobriand Islands, and the Louisiade Archipelago, were never linked to New Guinea by land bridges. As a consequence, they have their own flora and fauna; in particular, they lack many of the land mammals and flightless birds that are common to New Guinea and Australia. Three new species of mammals were discovered in the forests of Papua New Guinea by an Australian-led expedition. A small wallaby, a large-eared mouse and shrew-like marsupial were discovered. The expedition was also successful in capturing photographs and video footage of some other rare animals such as the Tenkile tree kangaroo and the Weimang tree kangaroo.

n the South, Papua, formally under British rule, used the stamps of Queensland between 1885 and 1901. With the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia, the philatelic production and postal organisation were decided by an Australian administration and the stamps printed in Brisbane, then Melbourne.  In the North, New Guinea was under the control of the German Empire and used its stamps between 1888 and 1897. The colony got stamps bearing its name after 1897. Consequently, to the Australian conquest in 1914, the remaining German colonial stamps and some Australian ones, were overprinted. After the Territory of New Guinea became a League of Nations mandate entrusted to Australia, this country organised the postal system and philatelic production in New Guinea. After the Japanese occupation of New Guinea and the suppression of civil administration in Papua at the beginning of 1942, the stamps of Australia were used between 1945 and 1953, before the two united territories got their own stamps. Progressively, it obtained its philatelic and postal autonomy, and finally independence in September 1975.

In German New Guinea, in the Bismarck Archipelago and the North Solomon Islands, the first German post offices opened in 1888 and used some stamps of the German Reich, issued between 1875 and 1887. The "DEUTSCH- / NEU-GUINEA" mention appeared in the middle of datestamps some years after, and there can be two or three stars. From January 1915 to 1925, were used in New Guinea and Nauru stamps of Australia overprinted "NORTH WEST PACIFIC ISLANDS". British controlled the South-East of the island of New Guinea since the late 1884. The colony was administrated from Queensland, whose postage stamps figuring Queen Victoria were in use in British New Guinea between 1885 and 1901. The colonial datestamps bore the "B.N.G." abbreviation. In November 1907, the Lakatoi design was put on stamps printed with the "PAPUA" name.  At the end of World War II, in 1945, stamps of Australia were used in New Guinea and in Papua until 1 March 1953.

On 30 October 1952, the new combined territory received its new stamp series figuring local topics and bearing the name "Territory of Papua and New Guinea". On 26 January 1972, with the stamps presenting the new flag and coat of arms of the territory, appeared a new mention "Papua New guinea". The new coins in kina and its subdivision, the toea, were presented on a five stamp series issued on 21 April 1975. In August, the four stamps marking the fifth South Pacific Games in Guam were the last before independence on 21 September 1975.

The covers posted on June 03, 2016 and I received on August 04, 2016. PNG post has no registered mail service now, They provide only EMS service . They had R service with UPU barcode labels, I specially requested for the label into my collection. So they sent back my envelopes as EMS with explanation that there is no stock of UPU labels now.. In my experience PNG post is one of the best service provider in the world for philatelists. They have stunning stamps, perfect cancellations, and all deliveries of stamps as EMS.