Republic of Vanuatu
Melanesia
Melanesian · Volcanic · Ancient
Vanuatu (officially Republic of Vanuatu) is a country located in Melanesia. Its capital city is Port Vila, with other major cities including Luganville and Isangel. With a population of approximately 330,000, the main languages spoken are Bislama, English, French. The country covers an area of 12,189 km². The official currency is the Vanuatu vatu (Vt). Traffic drives on the right side.
Vanuatu's Tanna Island is home to one of the world's most accessible active volcanoes, Mount Yasur, which has been erupting almost continuously for at least 800 years — and is sacred to local people who believe their ancestors live inside it.
Port Vila serves as the political, cultural and economic heart of Vanuatu, positioned in Melanesia. As the seat of government and often the most populous city, it concentrates the country's main institutions, universities and cultural landmarks. Beyond the capital, major cities include Luganville, Isangel — each a hub of regional culture, economy and history. Port Vila on Efate Island is a small Pacific capital where French and English official languages coexist with Bislama (Vanuatu Creole) in a post-colonial arrangement that makes Vanuatu officially trilingual — a country of 83 islands whose capital's waterfront harbour, casino, and French boulangeries reflect the New Hebrides condominium (joint French-British colonial rule from 1906 to 1980) that ended in one of the Pacific's most culturally complex independence moments.
With a population of approximately 330,000, Vanuatu is a vibrant society with a rich mix of traditions and communities. The principal languages spoken are Bislama, English, French, which reflect the country's cultural heritage and open doors to a wide international community. Internationally, Vanuatu is reached via the dialling code +678. Vanuatu's 300,000 people speak 138 languages — the world's highest per-capita language diversity — on 83 islands where kastom (custom) governance through chiefs maintains social order in communities that only nominally connected to the formal state apparatus, while the naghol (land diving) ritual of the Pentecost Island men who leap from wooden towers with vines tied to their ankles gave the world its prototype for bungee jumping.
Vanuatu spans 12,189 km², in the Melanesia subregion of Oceania. Geographically centred around 16.0°S, 167.0°E, the country offers a diverse range of landscapes shaped by its location, climate and geology. Road traffic follows the right-hand rule, in line with surrounding Oceania convention.
The official currency is the Vanuatu vatu (Vt), used for everyday transactions and commerce throughout the country. Vanuatu's economy is shaped by its geography, natural resources and trade relationships. Business and daily life operate under UTC+11:00, aligning the country with its regional neighbours.
Football / Rugby holds a special place in the heart of Vanuatu's national identity. Football and cricket compete for Vanuatu's sporting attention, but it is naghol (the Pentecost Island land diving ritual performed from April to June when yams ripen) that represents the most distinctly Vanuatu athletic tradition — men climbing bamboo towers up to 30 metres and diving head-first with only vines attached to their ankles, a ritual whose required physical courage and precise calculation of vine length has been performed annually for 1,500 years.
The highest point in Vanuatu is Tabwemasana, rising to 1,879 metres above sea level. Vanuatu sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire with 9 active volcanoes across its islands — Mount Yasur on Tanna Island is one of the world's most accessible active volcanoes, where visitors stand on the crater rim above the erupting lava lake without specialist equipment, and where the Tanna people's John Frum cargo cult treats the volcano as a sacred site in a living spiritual tradition that challenges easy categorisation.