Buka Island

One of the northern Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, in the southwestern Pacific. It lies northwest of Bougainville Island, from which it is separated by the deep Buka Passage (5 miles [8 km] wide). A volcanic formation measuring 35 miles by 9 miles (56 km by 14 km), Buka has a total land area of 190 square miles (492 square km). Rising to 1,634 feet (498 metres) in hills on the southwest, the island is densely