Welcome to Honiara, the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, on the northwestern coast of the island of Guadalcanal. Around 130,000 people lived here in 2019. The land east of the city saw fierce fighting in 1942, when the United States and Japan fought over the airfield during the Guadalcanal Campaign of the Second World War. Honiara grew after 1952, when it became the administrative centre of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Today it holds most of the nation's key institutions, including the parliament, the national museum and the busy central market. Let's start with the memories of the war.
Guadalcanal American Memorial
Photo: Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsWe begin just south of the city at the Guadalcanal American Memorial. It honours the Americans and their allies who lost their lives in the Guadalcanal Campaign, from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943. The memorial was dedicated on 7 August 1992, exactly 50 years after the Red Beach landings, and an account of the campaign is inscribed on red marble tablets inside the compound. Every year on 7 August, a ceremony marks the first day of the battle. On nearby Mount Austen, another monument, raised by the Japanese, remembers the Japanese who died.
Solomon Islands National Museum
Photo: Phenss · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsStep into the Solomon Islands National Museum, which officially opened in June 1969. Its story began back in 1951, when collectors interested in the material culture of the islands combined their private collections. For years the objects moved between different places in Honiara, including a teacher training college, until the Gulbenkian Foundation paid for a purpose-built museum. Once it opened, Solomon Islanders themselves began donating objects of cultural importance. In 1972 the museum became a government institution and extended its work to the outlying islands.
Honiara Central Market
Photo: Phenss · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsFollow the colours and the noise to Honiara Central Market, the country's largest outlet for fresh produce and fish. Stalls are piled with fruit, vegetables, flowers, fresh coconut water and local crafts, and you can even find shell money for sale. The market has its own waterfront on Iron Bottom Sound, so fishermen can bring their catch straight in by boat, a sign of how much Solomon Islanders value fresh fish. It is also a meeting place for the country's many ethnic groups. In 2014 around a thousand vendors traded here, and about 80 per cent of them were women.
Holy Cross Cathedral
Photo: Phenss · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsUp on Cathedral Hill stands Holy Cross Cathedral, the seat of the Catholic Archdiocese of Honiara. The first cathedral here was a humble one, adapted from a large Quonset hut and opened in 1957 while the permanent building was awaited. Built into its façade was a brick from the first Catholic mission in the Solomon Islands, dating from 1845. The site itself was believed to be where the first Christian cross in the Solomons was planted. In 1978 Pope John Paul the Second raised Honiara to a metropolitan archdiocese.
Solomon Islands Parliament Building
Photo: Taken by Dan Hetherington . · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia CommonsIn front of you is the cone-shaped Parliament Building, the seat of the National Parliament. It was a gift from the United States government, worth 5 million dollars, given in memory of the American servicemen who died in the Battle of Guadalcanal. A Japanese company built the two-storey concrete building in 1993, under the supervision of the US Navy, and Parliament first met here in November that year. Inside are the chamber, a public gallery with 600 seats and a library, but curiously, no offices for the members of parliament.
Ironbottom Sound
Photo: U.S. Navy, photo was taken from USS San Juan (CL-54). · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsLook out over the water towards Savo Island. Before the war this was Savo Sound, but Allied sailors renamed it Ironbottom Sound because of the many ships and planes that sank here during the naval battles of 1942 and 1943. More than 50 vessels lie on the seabed from the Guadalcanal Campaign, among them Japanese destroyers and cruisers. Every year, on the anniversary of the battle, a US ship sails into these waters and drops a wreath in memory of the men who lost their lives.
Lomakuume
