Vanuatu

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Vanuatu

The Republic of Vanuatu is a South Pacific island nation and island archipelago. The archipelago consists of about 82 islands, which are of volcanic origin. The three official languages are English, French and the creole tongue of Bislama. To find out more interesting facts about Vanuatu, read on.

5 Facts You Might Not Know

Vanuatu is considered to be a distinct terrestrial ecoregion by the World Wildlife Fund, known as the Vanuatu rain forests. The Vanuatu rain forests are a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion, which is a fancier way of saying tropical rain forest.

Vanuatu is very young, as far as officially recognized nations go. The Republic of Vanuatu achieved independence from both France and the United Kingdom, who had jointly claimed Vanuatu as the New Hebrides, in 1980.

Vanuatu has at least three currently active cargo cults: the John Frum cult, the Prince Philip Movement, and the Tom Hardy cult. The Prince Philip Movement, a religion of the Yaohnanen tribe on Tanna island, believes that John Frum and Prince Philip of England are brothers, being sons of a powerful mountain spirit.

Only about 9% of Vanuatu is used for agriculture. Despite being covered in vegetation, most islands show signs of deforestation, the result of a recent history of slash-and-burn agriculture on a large scale, logging, cattle ranching, and the establishment of coconut plantations. The rural population is largely stuck in a subsistence mode of trying to live off the land, with very limited access to markets.

The vast majority of native households in Vanuatu actively engage in fishing for sustenance, which has resulted in serious depletion of fish populations near villages. Saltwater crocodiles are even worse off than the shoreline fish species, with only a handful remaining in the mangroves of Vanuatu.

The capital of Vanuatu is Port Vila. The currency of Vanuatu is the Vatu(VUV) Flag of Vanuatu

Vanuatu belongs to the Oceanian continent

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