Solomon Islands document photos online

On the island of Malaita, a string of polished red and white sea shells can still settle a bride price, seal a land deal, or buy goods in a village shop. This traditional currency, called tafuliae, is hand-made at the Langa Langa Lagoon, which locals treat like a mint, and many families keep a hidden treasure-box of it at home. Yet no bank will touch it: since 24 October 1977 the only legal tender is the Solomon Islands dollar, issued by the Central Bank in Honiara. The result is a nation where ancient shell money and a modern passport economy quietly coexist.

• Passport power In January 2025 the Solomon Islands held the strongest passport of any Pacific Island nation, ranked 37th equal on the Henley Passport Index with access to 134 destinations worldwide.
• Shell money Strings of shell beads called tafuliae are still used across Malaita, Makira and Guadalcanal for bride price and land payments, even though banks refuse them and only the Solomon Islands dollar is recognised in law.
• Currency origin The Solomon Islands dollar replaced the Australian dollar at par when it launched on 24 October 1977, and the early notes carried Queen Elizabeth II until her portrait was swapped for the national coat of arms in 1986.
• Citizenship When the country became independent in 1978, only people indigenous to the islands automatically became citizens; the roughly 5,000 non-indigenous residents had a narrow two-year window to apply, and to this day adults are not permitted to hold dual citizenship.
• Languages For a population under 800,000, the Solomon Islands is one of the most linguistically dense places on Earth, with around 70 to 76 distinct languages, so English on official documents is spoken by barely 2 percent and Pijin serves as the everyday lingua franca.
• World record Rennell, the southernmost island, is the largest raised coral atoll on the planet, lifted some 120 metres out of the sea by tectonic forces over millennia.
• UNESCO lake East Rennell holds Lake Tegano, the largest lake in the insular Pacific at 15,500 hectares; once the atoll's lagoon, its brackish water now hides limestone islets and species found nowhere else, earning UNESCO World Heritage status in 1998.
• WWII history Guadalcanal, the largest island, was the site of the first major Allied land offensive against Japan in August 1942, where US Marines seized an airstrip and renamed it Henderson Field after a pilot killed at Midway.