Oceania: the Continent

According to the United Nations, Oceania includes Australia, with most of the land of the continent, New Guinea, New Zealand and the island groups called Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. As the name says, the Ocean is the main feature of this smallest and least populated continent - not considering Anctartica of course.

Geographically and on the basis of botanic, zoological and ethnographic criteria, the continent can be divided into two main areas:

Near Oceania including Australia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and other surrounding islands;
Remote Oceania including Polinesia, Micronesia and Melanesia.

The Countries

Many of the small islands and groups of islands are independent nations, other instead belong to countries of other continents.

The independent nations are : Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
The territories belonging to other non-Oceanic countries are: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna (France); Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa (United States); Pitcairn Islands (United Kingdom).