People in Vanuatu
270,000 people live on Vanuatu and most of them are
Melanesians. There are also a few Europeans,
Australians, New Zealanders, Vietnamese, Chinese and
people from other parts of the Pacific. The Melanesians
include the inhabitants of New Guinea, New Caledonia,
the Solomon Islands and, formerly, the indigenous people
of Australia.
But the term has not been clarified and is also
controversial because the Melanesians cannot be
precisely defined. Their language and culture are often
very different. They are more closely related to the
Aborigines in Australia than, for example, the
Polynesians who once migrated through their settlement
areas. The Melanesians have dark skin, but can still
have blonde hair, which is not common otherwise.
The locals refer to themselves as Ni-Vanuatu and lead
a very quiet life, even if they are not rich people.
Almost a third of the total population lives on the
four largest islands Espíritu Santo, Malakula, Éfaté and
Erromango. But very few of them live in the cities, most
of them are spread over the countryside. The largest
city is the capital Port Vila, this is where most of
the people live.
Population profile
- 33 out of 100 people are under 14 years old,
over 60 out of 100 are 15 to 64 years old and over
64 years are only just under 4 percent of Vanuatu's
residents.
- The birth rate is 1.5 per woman. That means:
every woman has around 1.5 children, on average, of
course. In 2015, Germany also had a birth rate of
1.5 children per woman. But that was extraordinarily
high, higher than it had been for a long time.
- 5 out of 100 babies die during or after their
birth.
- The life expectancy of men is 61 years for men
and 64 years for women.
Languages in Vanuatu
There are said to be 110 languages on Vanuatu. This
small country has one of the highest density of
different languages in the whole world. Most of the
people here speak a language called Bislama, a language
that originated during the time of the British and
French colonies. This is a Creole language. 21 out of
100 people speak it as their mother tongue, but the
truth is that most of Vanuatu's residents understand and
speak this language. English and French are official
languages.
Religions in Vanuatu
Most of the people who live on Vanuatu are Christians
, with most of the Presbyterian Church, which is one of
the Reformed Churches. Then follow the members of the
Anglican Church. 13 out of 100 inhabitants are Catholic.
Many also belong to other Christian religious
communities. Then there are the beliefs of the locals.
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