New Caledonia: Special collectivity of France in the southwest Pacific Ocean
New Caledonia (French: Nouvelle-Calédonie; popular name: Le caillou) (Malay: Caledonia Baru) is a sui generis collectivity (in practice an overseas territory) of France, made up of a main island (Grande Terre) and several smaller islands.
It is in the region of Melanesia in the southwest Pacific. At about half the size of Taiwan, it has a land area of 18,575.5 square kilometres (7,172 sq mi). At the 2004 census, 230,789 people lived there. It has an internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of .nc. The capital and largest city of the territory is Nouméa. The currency is the CFP franc. The inflation rate is -0.6%. The unemployment rate is 17.1%
A referendum was held in November 2018 to see if New Caledonia should declare independence from France. The results were more people wanted to stay in France than leave.
References
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