Oceania Countries Quiz: Name All 14 Countries

Oceania has 14 countries, and the Pacific islands are the test

Australia and New Zealand arrive at once, and Papua New Guinea and Fiji usually follow. After that the board asks for the Pacific island states, spread across thousands of kilometres of ocean and four of them, Nauru, Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands, home to fewer than 40,000 people each in the World Bank's 2025 estimates. Tuvalu has the fewest people of the 14, and Nauru the least land.

Fourteen sounds like a short list. It is short only once you know it.

Which countries count as Oceania here

The 14 are the UN member states in the UN M49 Oceania region, the convention this site and the Geography app use for every continent. The UN divides them into four groups: Australia and New Zealand; Melanesia (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu); Micronesia (Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Palau); and Polynesia (Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu).

Plenty of Pacific places are not on the board, because they are not sovereign UN members. The Cook Islands and Niue govern themselves in free association with New Zealand but are not UN members. New Caledonia and French Polynesia are part of France, Guam and American Samoa are US territories, and Hawaii is a US state. Timor-Leste and Indonesia are counted in Asia. Type any of them and the quiz says where it stands. The wider argument about which places count is in how many countries are in the world.

Tricks that make the 14 stick

Learn them by the UN's island groups. Melanesia, closest to Australia, holds the large, mountainous islands. Micronesia, mostly north of the equator, is the scatter of small islands and atolls in the western Pacific. Polynesia is the great triangle to the east. Four, five and three, plus the two big ones in the south.

Nauru and Tuvalu are among the smallest countries anywhere, and the smallest countries in the world list puts them in context. The capitals quiz, set to Oceania, takes the same countries from the other side, and it includes Ngerulmud, the capital of Palau.

Common questions

How many countries are in Oceania?

14. Those are the UN member states in the UN M49 Oceania region: Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Territories such as New Caledonia, Guam and French Polynesia are not counted.

Are the Cook Islands a country?

Not on this list. The Cook Islands and Niue are self governing in free association with New Zealand, and some countries deal with them as states, but neither is a UN member or observer. This quiz uses the same 195 as the rest of the site, so they are not on the board.

Is Papua New Guinea in Asia or Oceania?

Oceania. Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, and the UN files it under Melanesia, in Oceania. The western half of the same island belongs to Indonesia, which is counted in Asia.

Is Australia a country or a continent?

Australia is a country, one of the 14 on this board. Whether it is also a continent depends on the model you learned: some name Australia as the continent, others use Oceania for the wider region that includes New Zealand and the Pacific islands. This quiz uses the UN's Oceania region.

Does the quiz accept alternative country names?

Yes. Micronesia and the Federated States of Micronesia both work, as do PNG for Papua New Guinea, Western Samoa for Samoa, Aotearoa for New Zealand and New Hebrides for Vanuatu.

How long should this take?

The optional timer is two minutes, which is plenty for 14 names if you know them and very short if you do not. It is off by default, and a first run is better played without one.

Oceania countries quiz: can you name all 14?

Type a country in Oceania