A postcard from New Caledonia | Nouvelle Calédonie

Postcard

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean. The population is 252,000. The capital of the territory is Nouméa.

Third largest island in the Pacific after Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, New Caledonia is only 1,500 km east off the coast of Australia. Seeing this "terra incognita" in 1774, the British navigator James Cook found a similarity between the mountainous terrain of the Grande Terre and his native Scotland, whose former name was "Caledonia." Kanak are the indigenous Melanesian inhabitants of New Caledonia.

Stamp

From a set of two stamps issued 2008 picturing the Diahot river, which is the longest river of New Caledonia.