Manus Island

church in Papua New Guinea

Manus Island, also called Great Admiralty Island, largest of the Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea, southwestern Pacific Ocean. It lies about 200 miles (320 km) north of the island of New Guinea. The volcanic island has an area of 633 square miles (1,639 square km) and is an extension of the Bismarck Archipelago. From a coast that alternates between steep slopes and bays that are fringed with mangrove swamp, it rises to a ridged and hilly interior reaching 2,356 feet (718 metres) at Mount Dremsel. Heavily forested and well watered, Manus is drained by numerous short, swift streams, whose valleys provide the only lowlands besides a narrow, densely populated east-coast plain. Lorengau is the principal settlement.

Manus, perhaps visited by the Spanish explorer Álvaro Saavedra in 1528, was sighted by the Dutch navigator Willem Schouten in 1616. Navigational studies of the island were not made until 1875. The Germans established a post in 1912 at Lorengau, which came under Australian administration in 1914. Manus was the site of a large World War II U.S. naval base built in 1944 on the northeast coast at Seeadler Harbour.

Copra, cocoa, coffee, and other products are now exported from Seeadler Harbour. The island is served by regular domestic air service. Tourist activities include scuba diving, snorkeling, and attending traditional dance performances; there are also World War II relics on the island as well as shipwrecks in the surrounding waters. In the early 21st century Manus was the site of one of Australia’s controversial Pacific Island detention centres for the offshore processing of Australia-bound asylum seekers.