APPENDIX & The Socio-cultural Perspective A. The Physical Environment The Pacific Qcean contains some 10,000 islands. a fracti of which is inhabited by approximately five million people speaking some 1,P00 languages, which is 25% of all languages on earth. As Ron Crocombe points at, The "model" islanders is brown-skinned, darker today than a decade ago, and even the few black ones (especially from the Solomons) are becoming regarded as more "Pacific" rather than less. In other words, the physical image of Pacific people. which has been predominantly Polynesian and female for the last two hundred years, has become increasingly Melanesian and male during the last decade. (p. 5) 7. The islands of the vast Pacific are divided into three mafor divisions: Melanesia, which has 60,500 square miles of land; Polynesia, with) 10,000 square miles; and Micronesia, with only 1,200 square miles of land. land area and Wher water are compared, the ratio of water to land in the great Paciffic is 371:1. In 1788, Captains Gilbert and Marshal] made the first voyage From Australia to China. They happened on a group of islands that straddled the equator about 5° west of the international date line. himself. Captain Gilbert named the] islands after Another group of islands 10° west of the international ate line, and about 10° north of the equator acquired, naturally, Captain MashB1ll's name. The Marshall Islands consist of two parallel chains of atoll and islands. Ratak (Sunrise) is the eastern chain and has 15 atolls and islagds, and Ralik (Sunset) has 16 atolls and islands. The total islets of these atblls, however, number 1,152 and are dispersed over more than one half a million| square miles, yet the aggregate land area of these hundreds of islets is a mefe 69.7 square miles. These Marshallese. are inhabited by a total population of approximately 30,000