New Caledonia

The official name was given by Captain Cook when he discovered this land during his second voyage on 4th September 1774. Seeing it from afar with shapes which reminded him of the Scottish Highlands he named it "New Caledonia".

New Caledonia thus named was only the main mountainous island which was later called "Grande Terre" (See Cook map, left, North is to the right). It was not the archipelago, and when Cook discovered, to the South, Kunie island, he clearly distinguished it from New Caledonia in naming it Isle of Pines.

He did not know then the Loyalty Islands were further East. They were discovered only 20 years later by Raven.

Until 1853 New Caledonia refered only to the main island (Grande Terre)

The ambiguity

With France annexing New Caledonia in 1853 and establishing of a new colony, the name New Caledonia was eventually extended to the whole archipelago consisting in Grande Terre, Loyalty Islands, Kunie, Belep islands, Matthew, Walpole and Hunter. It has kept the name New Caledonia since despite its many status changes and the independence proponents who want to name it Kanaky. As a result of this extension of name and as no name had ever been given to the main island by native people, it was administratively renamed "Grande Terre" which is neither imaginative nor original. However, due to the lack of a real name, this would have been the name used in the past by its inhabitants and people from the islands.

However no inhabitant of the main island would tell you that he has been around "Grande Terre" during his last holidays (but perhaps a public servant from metropolitan France. For people in New Caledonia you go around "Calédonie" ("Nouvelle" has been dropped a long time ago) and the bicycling event which goes around this main island is named "Le Tour de Calédonie". Grande Terre remains New Caledonia and it is foremost an island rather than an archipelago. Lovingly they also call it "le Caillou" (the stone). As for people from the "îles", they are foremost from Lifou, Ouvéa, Maré, Tiga, Kunié or Beleps Is.

New Caledonia is therefore, but for the official language, both an island and an archipelago.