Current Time in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Port Moresby is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea, occupying a series of ridges and bays on the southern coast of the island of New Guinea, facing the Coral Sea. Unusually for a country famous for rainforest, the city lies in a rain shadow and has a tropical savanna climate, with a distinct dry season of brown grassland and eucalyptus, and a wet season from December to April. Hills rise steeply behind the harbour, and the Owen Stanley Range stands inland.

Around four hundred thousand people live in the National Capital District, drawn from every province of a country with more than eight hundred languages, which makes Port Moresby one of the most linguistically diverse cities on earth. Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu and English are the common languages, and the traditional owners of the land are the Motu and Koitabu peoples, whose villages built on stilts over the water at Hanuabada remain a striking feature of the harbour.

The Motu were celebrated navigators. Each year they sailed great multi hulled lagatoi canoes hundreds of kilometres westward on the hiri trading voyages, exchanging clay pots for sago, and this tradition is remembered in the Hiri Moale festival. The modern city takes its name from Captain John Moresby of the Royal Navy, who charted the harbour in 1873 and named it after his father.

During the Second World War Port Moresby was the principal Allied base in New Guinea and the objective of a Japanese advance that was halted on the Kokoda Track in the mountains behind the city in 1942. The campaign is commemorated at the Bomana War Cemetery, the largest in the Pacific, and the track itself has become a demanding trek undertaken by thousands of walkers each year, especially Australians.

The country became independent in 1975, and the capital's landmarks reflect that new nationhood. The National Parliament House, opened in 1984, is designed in the form of a Sepik spirit house with a monumental painted façade, and the National Museum and Art Gallery holds outstanding collections of masks, carvings and canoes. Port Moresby Nature Park displays tree kangaroos, cassowaries and birds of paradise in a garden of orchids, and Varirata National Park in the hills above the city offers rainforest walks and views over the coast. The waterfront at Ela Beach and the harbour promenade were rebuilt for the international summit hosted here in 2018.

The economy rests on government, mining and petroleum services, particularly the large liquefied natural gas project, and on commerce. Roads do not connect the capital to the other major cities of the country, so air and sea links through Jacksons International Airport and the port are essential.

The University of Papua New Guinea at Waigani is the country's oldest and largest, alongside several other institutions.

Port Moresby is important as the political and economic heart of the Pacific's most culturally diverse nation and as the gateway to its reefs, mountains and rainforests.