The wildest capital — Kokoda Track, Hanuabada stilt villages and a thousand tribes on one island
Port Moresby is the capital of Papua New Guinea, one of the world's most linguistically diverse countries (over 800 living languages — 12% of the world's total) and one of the least-visited capitals on earth. The city sits on Fairfax Harbour with the traditional stilt village of Hanuabada visible from the waterfront — a Motu settlement dating to long before European contact, still lived in by the original custodians of this bay. The National Museum and Art Gallery holds one of the world's finest collections of Melanesian art, ceremonial masks, and artefacts from across PNG's extraordinary hig…
The Motu and Koitabu peoples have lived on Fairfax Harbour for thousands of years, building stilt villages on the water that still exist in Hanuabada today. British Captain John Moresby sailed into the harbour in 1873 and named it for his father; British and German New Guinea were divided by treaty in 1884, with Britain taking the south. Papua New Guinea achieved independence from Australian administration in 1975 — one of the last colonial territories globally to do so. The Kokoda Track became the site of a critical 1942 WWII campaign where Australian and Papuan Infantry Battalion forces tur…