50 Fun Facts About Vanuatu

Before independence, what was Vanuatu called?

The New Hebrides was ruled by Britain and France at the same time for 74 years, and the new republic dropped the colonial name on independence day in 1980.

Which explorer charted Vanuatu in 1774 and gave the islands the name they kept until independence?

James Cook's name for the chain outlasted him by two centuries: even the French, whose own explorer Bougainville had sailed through six years earlier, used a translation of it.

Pedro Fernandes de Queirós led the first Europeans to Vanuatu in 1606, believing he had found what?

A great southern continent, he thought: Queirós claimed the land for Spain and founded a settlement there, then abandoned it within weeks.

Vanuatu belongs to which island region?

Melanesia: Vanuatu helped found the region's political bloc, the Melanesian Spearhead Group, in the 1980s and still hosts its headquarters, in a building paid for by China.

Britain and France's joint rule of colonial Vanuatu was mockingly nicknamed what?

The Pandemonium, a pun on its official name, the Condominium: each power ran its own administration, courts and schools, and they shared a joint court whose president was appointed by the King of Spain.

Under the Anglo-French Condominium, what nationality could native Ni-Vanuatu claim?

Officially stateless: islanders were barred from taking either power's citizenship, and the two governments left their schooling and healthcare largely to missionaries.

What was Walter Lini, Vanuatu's first prime minister, by profession?

An Anglican priest ordained in 1970, Father Lini led Vanuatu for its first eleven years and took it into the Non-Aligned Movement.

Which country's troops did newly independent Vanuatu call in to end a secessionist revolt on its largest island?

Papua New Guinea sent its army abroad for the first time, and the revolt collapsed within weeks when rebel leader Jimmy Stevens surrendered.

American backers of Vanuatu's 1980 revolt hoped to create what?

A tax haven was the dream of the Phoenix Foundation, a group of American libertarians who funded rebel leader Jimmy Stevens before the breakaway state was put down.

What is the capital and largest town of Vanuatu?

Port Vila began as Franceville, a settlers' town that declared itself an independent commune in 1889, an experiment that lasted less than a year.

Vanuatu's capital sits on which island?

Efate was garrisoned by American forces in 1942, and the airstrip they built outside the capital is now the country's main airport, still named Bauerfield after a US Marine pilot.

What is the largest island in Vanuatu?

Espiritu Santo, or simply Santo, was turned into a huge American military base in the Second World War, centred on what is now the country's second-largest town.

Vanuatu's island chain and its flag both trace the shape of which letter?

Y: the yellow Y on the flag traces the islands' layout across the Pacific and also stands for the light of the Gospel spreading through them.

What is Vanuatu's national language, an English-based creole?

Bislama is the language of the national anthem, 'Yumi, Yumi, Yumi' ('We, We, We'), and the everyday bridge between islanders who grow up speaking different local tongues.

The name of Vanuatu's creole language comes from a French term for which traded delicacy?

Sea cucumber is bêche-de-mer in French; 19th-century traders came to the islands to harvest it, and the pidgin English spoken with their crews took the animal's name.

In Vanuatu's national creole, which English word does 'blong' replace?

Of: 'blong' comes from the English 'belong', so the country's own name in the creole is 'Ripablik blong Vanuatu'.

Vanuatu's 100-plus indigenous languages belong to which far-flung family that also includes Hawaiian, Malay and Malagasy?

Austronesian tongues are so numerous here, more per head than in any other country, that islanders rely on a shared creole to talk to people from the next island.

The famous land-diving ritual, in which men leap from tall wooden towers, is performed on which island?

Pentecost's divers believe the higher they jump, the higher the crops will grow; the soil beneath the tower is tilled soft because the aim is to land as close to the ground as possible.

What do Vanuatu's land divers tie around their ankles before jumping from the tower?

Tree vines must be supple and full of sap, and matched to each diver with great precision: one that is too dry can snap, and one too long means hitting the ground.

Land diving is traditionally performed to ensure a good harvest of which crop?

Yam harvest is what the dive is for: a good jump is believed to bring a good crop, and for boys the leap is a rite of passage into manhood.

A Vanuatu land dive staged for Queen Elizabeth II in 1974 turned fatal because it was held when?

Out of season: colonial officials wanted a show for the royal tour and persuaded villagers to jump at the wrong time of year, and one of the men who fell that day later died of his injuries.

Vanuatu's land divers inspired which modern thrill sport, first tried from an English bridge in 1979?

Bungee jumping was born when members of Britain's Dangerous Sports Club, recalling magazine articles about the land divers, tried the same leap from Bristol's Clifton Suspension Bridge on elastic cords.

Mount Yasur, one of the world's most active volcanoes, is on which Vanuatu island?

Tanna's Yasur has been erupting almost continuously for centuries, often several times an hour, yet visitors can usually approach the crater safely.

On John Frum Day each February, followers of the Vanuatu movement parade with mock rifles made of what?

Bamboo, with the tips painted scarlet to look like bayonets: the marchers copy the American troops of the 1940s, with 'USA' daubed on their bare chests.

Followers of Vanuatu's John Frum movement believe their rituals will one day bring what?

Planeloads of modern goods, the 'cargo' in cargo cult: islanders who watched wartime America's supplies pour in were promised radios, trucks and Coca-Cola if they kept faith with John Frum.

Vanuatu's Yaohnanen tribe revered which British royal as a mountain spirit's divine son?

Prince Philip played along: when the villagers sent him a ceremonial club, he posted back a photograph of himself holding it.

Which 1947 book of wartime stories drew on its author's posting to what is now Vanuatu?

Tales of the South Pacific grew out of James Michener's posting to a US Navy base in the islands, and two years later Rodgers and Hammerstein turned it into the musical South Pacific.

Why is a beach on Vanuatu's largest island called 'Million Dollar Point'?

Departing US forces dumped surplus there out of spite: colonial officials refused to buy the vehicles and stores at six cents on the dollar, hoping to get them free, so the Americans drove them into the sea.

The SS President Coolidge, now a famous wreck dive off Vanuatu, sank in 1942 after striking what?

Mines laid by its own side sank the liner because her sailing orders left out the safe channel; the captain ran her aground so about 5,000 men could wade ashore, and only two died.

What is the national dish of Vanuatu?

Laplap is a pudding of grated root crops or plantain, wrapped in leaves and baked for hours in an earth oven, which is why many families save it for weekends and feasts.

Which traditional drink do people in Vanuatu share each evening?

Kava, made from the root of a pepper plant, relaxes the drinker and numbs the mouth; bars serving it have spread through the towns and it has become an export crop.

In Vanuatu, what is a nakamal?

The village meeting house is where disputes are aired and decisions made, and where men gather at dusk; in the towns the word now also means a bar selling the national drink.

The curved tusk of which animal appears on Vanuatu's flag?

Boar tusks grown into a full circle are a mark of wealth across the islands and are worn as pendants, so the one on the flag stands for prosperity.

Copra, long Vanuatu's main export, is the dried flesh of what?

Coconut flesh is dried and sold as copra for its oil; once the mainstay of village incomes, it has since been overtaken as a cash earner by other crops.

What is the currency of Vanuatu?

The vatu replaced the colonial franc one-for-one in 1981, a year after independence, giving the new country a currency of its own.

Vanuatu's six provinces — Malampa, Penama, Sanma, Shefa, Tafea and Torba — get their names how?

From the first letters of their islands: Torba, for instance, joins the Torres and Banks groups, a scheme adopted when the six provinces replaced eleven island regions in 1994.

What unusual branch did Vanuatu's postal service open off Hideaway Island in 2003?

An underwater post office: snorkellers and divers buy waterproof postcards on shore, swim down to the booth and have them embossed rather than stamped in ink.

Which global ranking put Vanuatu first in 2006 and again in 2024?

Happy Planet Index scores reward long, contented lives lived on a small ecological footprint, which is how Vanuatu outranked far richer countries; Costa Rica led most of the editions in between.

The 2021 WorldRiskIndex ranked Vanuatu first of 181 countries for its risk from what?

Natural disasters: cyclones, earthquakes, eruptions and tsunamis all threaten the islands, and the index also weighs how hard it is for a small, poor country to cope and recover.

Which category 5 cyclone devastated Vanuatu in March 2015?

Cyclone Pam struck while Vanuatu's president was in Japan at a global conference on preparing for just such emergencies, where he appealed for international help.

Until a 2018 eruption drained them, Ambrym's craters in Vanuatu held which rare feature?

Lava lakes: the one in Marum crater was about the size of two football fields, and in 2017 explorers abseiled 400 metres down to film it for Google Street View.

In 2020, Vanuatu's government earned more from selling what than from any other source?

Passports: more than 2,000 people bought citizenship that year, typically in little more than a month and without setting foot in the country, some of them wanted by police abroad.

In 2018 Vanuatu became one of the first countries in the world to ban what?

Plastic bags and straws were outlawed together, the straw ban billed as a world first; six years on, shoppers carry reusable bags and festival food comes wrapped in banana leaves.

Roughly how many people did Vanuatu's 2020 census count?

About 300,000 people were counted, most of them in rural villages, so the country's hundred-plus local languages average only a couple of thousand speakers each.

Which prized timber, found on Erromango in 1825, drew Vanuatu's first rush of European traders?

Sandalwood, valued in China as incense and traded there for tea, was cut so fast that supplies were all but gone within a few decades and the trade died.

What was the labour trade that shipped Ni-Vanuatu men to Queensland and Fiji called?

Blackbirding drew off more than half the adult men of some islands at its height, many of them tricked or taken by force, before Australia shut the trade down in the early 1900s.

Vanuatu won Commonwealth bronze in 2018 and 2022 in which sport?

Beach volleyball: Miller Pata won both bronzes, with a different partner each time, though as of the 2024 Games Vanuatu was still waiting for its first Olympic medal.

Where was Vanuatu's first COVID-19 case, in November 2020, detected?

In border quarantine: the man had flown in from the United States and tested positive at a routine fifth-day check, nearly eight months after Vanuatu began restricting arrivals.

Vanuatu's constitution sets up a national council of whom to advise on custom, culture and language?

Traditional chiefs, chosen by their peers in district councils, advise the government on protecting local languages and culture; many earned their rank through wealth and influence, not birth.

Moana Carcasses, who in 2013 became Vanuatu's first naturalised citizen to serve as prime minister, was born where?

French Polynesia: born in Tahiti to a French father and a Tahitian mother, the Greens' leader held the top job for 14 months before a no-confidence vote removed him.