Melanesia (from Greek: μέλας black, νῆσος island) literally means "islands of the black-skinned people". It's a subregion of Oceania extending from the western side of the West Pacific to the Arafura Sea, north and northeast of Australia. The term was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands distinct from Polynesia and Micronesia. Today, d'Urville's racial classification's regarded to… (More on Melanesians)