Belep

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Commune of Belep
Administration
Country	France
Sui generis collectivity	New Caledonia
Province	North Province
Mayor	Jean-Baptiste Moilou
Statistics
Altitude	0 m–283 m (avg. 20 m)
Land area¹	69.5 km²
Population² (2004 census)	930
- Density (2004 census)	13.4/km²
- Ethnic distribution   (1996 census)	Kanaks 99.3% Europeans 0% Polynesians 0% Other 0.7%
Miscellaneous
INSEE/Postal code	98801/ 98811
¹ New Caledonia Land Register (DITTT) data, which exclude lakes and ponds larger than 1 km² (0.386 mi² or 247 acres) as well as the estuaries of rivers.
² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel).

Belep (sometimes unofficially spelled Bélep) is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean.

The commune's territory is made up of the Belep Islands (also known as the Belep Archipelago), which lie to the north of New Caledonia's mainland. The two principal islands in the Belep Archipelago are Art Island (aka Aar) and Pott Island (aka Phwoc), and the rest of the archipelago consists of the Northern Daos Islands, the Southern Daos Islands, and several very small islets.

The administrative centre of the commune is the settlement of Waala, on Art Island, the largest of the Belep Islands.

[edit] History

The Belep Islands were named after a Kanak chief who settled there in ancient times. A Catholic mission was founded in Belep in 1856. There existed a leper colony on the islands between 1892 and 1898.