New Caledonia
Paleontology related stamps (prehistoric animals)

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New Caledonia,  is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, 1,210 km  east of Australia and 16,136 km  east of Metropolitan France.  The Chesterfield Islands are in the Coral Sea.  New Caledonia has a land area of 18,576 km2. Its population of  about 270,000  consists of a mix of Kanak people (the original inhabitants of New Caledonia), people of European descent, Polynesian people  and Southeast Asian people, as well as a few people of Pied-Noir and Maghreban descent. The capital of the territory is Nouméa.
Settled by both Britain and France during the first half of the 19th century, the island became a French possession in 1853. It served as a penal colony for four decades after 1864. Agitation for independence during the 1980s and early 1990s ended in the 1998 Noumea Accord, which over a period of 15 to 20 years will transfer an increasing amount of governing responsibility from France to New Caledonia. The agreement also commits France to conduct a referendum between 2014 and 2018 to decide whether New Caledonia should assume full sovereignty and independence.