New Hebrides

New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium (French: Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides, lit. "Condominium of the New Hebrides") and named after the Hebrides Scottish archipelago, was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu. Native people had inhabited the islands for three thousand years before the first Europeans arrived in 1606 from a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós. The islands were named by Captain James Cook in 1774 and subsequently colonised by both the British and the French.

New Hebrides Condominium
Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides
1906–1980
CapitalPort Vila
Common languagesEnglish, French, Bislama
Government
Resident Commisoner 
LegislatureRepresentative Assembly (1975-1980)
History 
 Established
20 October 1906
30 July 1980
CurrencyNew Hebrides franc, Australian dollar
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Anglo-French Joint Naval Commission
Vanuatu

The two countries eventually signed an agreement making the islands an Anglo-French condominium that provided for joint sovereignty over the archipelago with two parallel administrations, one British, one French. In some respects, that divide continued even after independence, with schools teaching in either one language or the other. The condominium lasted from 1906 until 1980, when New Hebrides gained its independence as the Republic of Vanuatu.

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