Shortland Islands in the context of "Magusaiai"

8°00′S 159°00′E / 8.000°S 159.000°E / -8.000; 159.000

The Solomon Islands is an island group (archipelago) in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across the sovereign states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (currently a part of Papua New Guinea) along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the volcanic islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. The Santa Cruz Islands are not a part of the archipelago.

6°14′40″S 155°23′02″E / 6.24444°S 155.38389°E / -6.24444; 155.38389

The North Solomon Islands form a geographical area covering the more northerly group of islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago and includes Bougainville and Buka Islands, Choiseul, Santa Isabel, the Shortland Islands and Ontong Java Atoll. In 1885 Germany declared a protectorate over these islands forming the German Solomon Islands Protectorate. With the exception of Bougainville and Buka, these were transferred to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate in 1900. Bougainville and Buka continued under German administration until the outset of World War I, when they were transferred to Australia, and after the war, were formally passed to Australian jurisdiction under a League of Nations mandate.

The Second Samoan Civil War was a conflict that reached a head in 1898 when Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States were locked in dispute over who should have control over the Samoan island chain, located in the South Pacific Ocean.

At the war's conclusion in 1899, the United States were granted the eastern section of the islands, the Germans were granted the western section of the islands, and the British were given the northern Solomon Islands of Choiseul, Isabel and the Shortland Islands that had formerly belonged to Germany. The German half was occupied and annexed by New Zealand in 1914 and is now an independent nation – Samoa. The U.S. half still remains under the control of the U.S. government as the territory of American Samoa.