New Guinea’s west passed from Dutch rule to Indonesia in 1962
Western New Guinea—also Papua or Indonesian New Guinea—is the island’s western half, transferred from Dutch control to Indonesia in 1962. Geographically part of the Australian continent and almost entirely south of the equator, it includes Biak and Raja Ampat beside vast rainforest.
People have lived here for more than 50,000 years. Trade with neighbouring islands of the archipelago is recorded from the seventh century, and island-based rulers held parts of New Guinea by the thirteenth. Europeans came hunting spices from the late sixteenth century, and the Dutch eventually dominated, claiming the west and starting missionary work in the nineteenth century before the region passed to Indonesia in the 1960s.
Choosing a name signals a political position. The ISO lists the region as Papua; independence activists say West Papua, a name Indonesia has also given its westernmost province since 2007. Past official names ran from Netherlands New Guinea (1895–1962) to West New Guinea or West Irian, then Irian Jaya from 1973 and Papua from 2002. The Indonesian equivalent of Western New Guinea survives mainly in historical phrases.
Reforms across Indonesia after 1998 brought more regional autonomy, and a Special Autonomy status in 2001, only partly carried out by 2006. The region was split into Papua and West Papua in 2003, and four more, Central, Highland, South and Southwest Papua, were created in 2022 for a total of six. The 2020 census counted 5,437,775 people, most of them Indigenous, with an official estimate of 5,601,888 by mid-2022.
The interior is mostly Papuan, while coastal towns mix Papuan, Melanesian, Austronesian and migrant Indonesian ancestry. Indonesian is official and Papuan Malay the everyday lingua franca, alongside somewhere between 200 and more than 700 local languages, including Dani, Yali, Ekari and Biak. Christianity is the leading religion, followed by Islam, and the economy rests on farming, fishing, oil and mining, with large reserves of gold, nickel and petroleum.
Source: Western New Guinea
