 Orbital photo of Nouméa, New Caledonia, taken from the International Space Station. Image courtesy of NASA. Nouméa, or Noumea, is the capital city of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south western area of New Caledonia's main island, Grand Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Indonesian, Tahitian and Vietnamese population, as well as many native Kanaks that work in the South Pacific's most industrialised cities.
The area in which the city is found was not an important one for Kanaks prior to European settlement; the first European to set up a settlement nearby was a British trader, James Paddon, in 1851. The French, anxious to assert control of the island, established a settlement there three years later in 1854, moving from the north of the island (the settlement of Balade). The area served first as a penal colony, later as a centre for the exploitation of the nickel and gold that was mined nearby. It served at the headquarters of the United States military in the Pacific during World War II.
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