Back إقليم غينيا الجديدة Arabic Territoriu de Nueva Guinea AST Yeni Qvineya Ərazisi Azerbaijani یئنی گینه اراضیسی AZB Тэрыторыя Новая Гвінея Byelorussian Territoriet Ny Guinea Danish Territorium Neuguinea German Territorio de Nueva Guinea Spanish قلمرو گینه نو Persian Uuden-Guinean territorio Finnish
Territory of New Guinea[1] | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1914–1975 | |||||||||||
 | |||||||||||
| Status | Mandate of Australia (1920–1946) Trust Territory of Australia (1946–1975) | ||||||||||
| Capital | Rabaul (1914–1937) Lae (1937–1942) Wau (1942) | ||||||||||
| Capital-in-exile | Port Moresby | ||||||||||
| Common languages | English (official) Austronesian languages Papuan languages English creoles German creoles | ||||||||||
| Monarch | |||||||||||
• 1914–1936 | George V | ||||||||||
• 1952–1975 | Elizabeth II | ||||||||||
| Administrator | |||||||||||
• 1914–1915 | William Holmes (first) | ||||||||||
• 1934–1942 | Walter McNicoll (last)[2] | ||||||||||
| Legislature | Legislative council House of Assembly | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Interwar period | ||||||||||
| 28 June 1919 | |||||||||||
| 16 September 1975[3] | |||||||||||
| Currency | New Guinean pound (1914–1966) Australian dollar (1966–75) Oceanian pound (1942–45) | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
.svg)
The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the name of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. That administrative union was renamed as Papua New Guinea in 1971. Notwithstanding that it was part of an administrative union, the Territory of New Guinea at all times retained a distinct legal status and identity until the advent of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.
The initial Australian mandate, entitled the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean situated South of the Equator other than German Samoa and Nauru, was based on the previous German New Guinea, which had been captured and occupied by Australian forces during World War I.
Most of the Territory of New Guinea was occupied by Japan during World War II, between 1942 and 1945. During this time, Rabaul, on the island of New Britain, became a major Japanese base (see New Guinea campaign). After World War II, the territories of Papua and New Guinea were combined in an administrative union under the Papua New Guinea Provisional Administration Act (1945–46).
- ^ New Guinea Act, 1920 to 1945; Papua and New Guinea Act, 1949 (as to its official and commonly used name being Territory of New Guinea and not Trust Territory of New Guinea)
- ^ McNicoll was the last administrator who ran a separate administration from Papua
- ^ As to the Territory of New Guinea having continued to have a legal existence as a distinct territory, separate and distinct from the Territory of Papua, note the following Recital to the Papua New Guinea Independence Act, 1975 "WHEREAS the Papua and New Guinea Act 1949 provided for the administration of the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea by Australia in an administrative union, by the name of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, whilst maintaining the identity and status of the Territory of New Guinea as a Trust Territory and the identity and status of the Territory of Papua as a Possession of the Crown".