Daru
Town in Western Province, Papua New Guinea
Daru is the capital of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea and a former Catholic bishopric. Daru town falls under the jurisdiction of Daru Urban LLG.
The township is entirely located on an island that goes by the same name, which is located near the mouth of the Fly River on the western side of the Gulf, just north of Torres Strait and Far North Queensland in Australia. Daru had a recorded population of 15,142 as of the 2011 census.
01History
Galician-Portuguese explorer, Luis Vaez de Torres, in the 1600s visited the location of the current town.
02Population
The language of the Daru people is Kiwai (South-West Coastal Kiwai), also spoken on neighbouring mainland villages (the name Kiwai comes from Kiwai Island some 60 km north-east in the Fly River delta). However, the Kiwai settlement of Daru is fairly recent. The original inhabitants, the Hiamo, were Western-Central Torres Strait Islanders originally from Yama in the Torres Strait. With the Kiwai colonisations, the main group of Hiamo people moved to Southern Torres Strait and settled the (Inner) Muralag group.
03Religion
Its St. Louis de Montfort Co-Cathedral is the 'second see' (and former 'full' cathedral) of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Daru-Kiunga (renamed in 1987, originally Apostolic Prefecture of Daru since 1957, promoted diocese in 1966).
04Transport
It is served by Daru Airport, a small airstrip.
05Climate
Daru has a tropical savannah climate (Köppen Aw) with heavy rainfall most of the year and low rainfall from July to October.
| Climate data for Daru (1980-2007) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 31.3 (88.3) |
31.4 (88.5) |
30.8 (87.4) |
30.0 (86.0) |
29.4 (84.9) |
28.6 (83.5) |
28.0 (82.4) |
28.0 (82.4) |
28.9 (84.0) |
29.9 (85.8) |
31.1 (88.0) |
31.7 (89.1) |
29.9 (85.9) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 24.5 (76.1) |
24.2 (75.6) |
24.3 (75.7) |
24.4 (75.9) |
24.6 (76.3) |
24.0 (75.2) |
23.4 (74.1) |
23.4 (74.1) |
23.6 (74.5) |
24.3 (75.7) |
24.7 (76.5) |
24.6 (76.3) |
24.2 (75.5) |
| Average rainfall mm (inches) | 224.2 (8.83) |
257.8 (10.15) |
293.8 (11.57) |
411.4 (16.20) |
186.8 (7.35) |
63.4 (2.50) |
45.9 (1.81) |
32.5 (1.28) |
19.5 (0.77) |
21.6 (0.85) |
47.9 (1.89) |
202.2 (7.96) |
1,807 (71.16) |
| Average rainy days | 20 | 20 | 19 | 21 | 20 | 21 | 18 | 16 | 10 | 8 | 8 | 17 | 198 |
| Source: World Meteorological Organization | |||||||||||||
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Daru”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Daru Island Sentinel-2 Imagery.jpg by European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery, Attribution
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