Solomon Islands
The Country of the Week
Quick Facts
- Capital
- Honiara
- Population
- 738,774 (2025 est.)
- Area
- 28,896 sq km
- Government
- parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm
- Languages
- Melanesian pidgin (lingua franca in much of the country), English (official but spoken by only 1%-2% of the population), 120 indigenous languages
- Religions
- Protestant 73.4% (Church of Melanesia 31.9%, South Sea Evangelical 17.1%, Seventh Day Adventist 11.7%, United Church 10.1%, Christian Fellowship Church 2.5%), Roman Catholic 19.6%, other Christian 2.9%, other 4%, unspecified 0.1% (2009 est.)
- Ethnic Groups
- Melanesian 95.3%, Polynesian 3.1%, Micronesian 1.2%, other 0.3% (2009 est.)
- Currency
- Solomon Islands dollars (SBD)
- Life Expectancy
- 77.2 years (2024 est.)
- Internet Domain
- .sb
- Climate
- tropical monsoon; few temperature and weather extremes
- Terrain
- mostly rugged mountains with some low coral atolls
- Natural Resources
- fish, forests, gold, bauxite, phosphates, lead, zinc, nickel
- Major Exports
- wood, fish, gold, precious metal ore, palm oil (2023)
Source: CIA World Factbook (public domain)
Overview
Settlers from Papua arrived on the Solomon Islands around 30,000 years ago. About 6,000 years ago, Austronesian settlers came to the islands, and the two groups mixed extensively.