Provinces of Papua New Guinea

Autonomous region, capital district, and Provinces of Papua New Guinea
Category	Unitary state
Location	Independent State of Papua New Guinea
Number	20 Provinces 1 Autonomous Region 1 Capital district
Populations	(Provinces only): 50,231 (Manus) - 674,810 (Morobe)
Areas	(Provinces only): 2,100 km2 (800 sq mi) (Manus) – 98,190 km2 (37,911 sq mi) (Fly River)
Government	Provincial government, Government of Papua New Guinea
Subdivisions	(Provinces and Autonomous Region):District (Capital District):Suburb

The provinces of Papua New Guinea are the primary administrative divisions of the country. Provincial governments are branches of the national government– Papua New Guinea is not a federation of provinces. The country has 22 province-level divisions: 20 provinces, one autonomous region (Bougainville) and the National Capital District.

Parliament approved in 2009 the creation of two additional provinces by 2012: Hela Province, which would consist of part of the current Southern Highlands Province, and Jiwaka Province, which would be formed by dividing Western Highlands Province. The two new provinces officially came into being on 17 May 2012.

Immediately before independence on 16 September 1975, Papua New Guinea was divided into nineteen provinces and the National Capital District. These provinces corresponded to the "Districts" of the pre-Independence administration of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

It had been considered that an independent state with limited resources could ill afford the infrastructure of a two-level quasi-federal governmental structure.

However, a secession movement in Bougainville, whose Bougainville Copper Mine provided the largest single source of foreign exchange and whose contribution to the general revenue was crucial to the independent state's economic viability, forced the issue. The Bougainville secession movement declared the Republic of the North Solomons on 1 September 1975 and the central government very quickly responded by offering provincial status to Bougainville. For the sake of consistency, as there were or had been regional separatist movements in Papua and East New Britain, provincial status was offered to the other 18 Districts as well.

Bougainville continues to be a special case. A renewed secession movement emerged in 1988 and resulted in a violent military campaign on the island, the closing of the Bougainville Copper Mine with serious financial consequences for the central government, the destruction or running-down of most infrastructure on the island and, ultimately, the total quarantining of the province for a decade. The Sandline affair of 1997 was a political scandal that became one of the defining moments in the history of Papua New Guinea, and particularly that of the conflict in Bougainville.

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