Wabag is the capital of Enga Province

Enga Province

Enga refers to both an ethnic group located in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and the province in which they are the majority ethnic group.-Physical geography:...

, Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

. It is the least populous provincial capital in the country. It is on the Lai River; the Highlands Highway

Highlands Highway

The Highlands Highway, sometimes known as the Okuk Highway, is the main land highway in Papua New Guinea. It connects several major cities and is vital for the movement of people and goods between the populous Highlands region and the coast....

 passes through the town, between Mount Hagen

Mount Hagen

Mount Hagen is third largest city in Papua New Guinea. It is the capital of the Western Highlands Province and is located in the large fertile Wahgi Valley in central mainland Papua New Guinea, at an elevation of ....

 and Porgera. Europeans first visited the site in 1938-39 A radio camp and airstrip were established in 1938-39 but restrictions on transportation and the surrounding land's infertility long inhibited Wabag's development.

History

A regional outpost of the Western Highlands District under the Australian Administration of Papua and New Guinea, shortly before Independence in 1975 much of the Enga-speaking region of the Western Highlands was separated into a discrete District and then, at Independence, Province with Wabag as the Provincial Headquarters.

Wabag today

There is a dense rural population and coffee and pyrethrum are widely grown in food gardens as cash crops though depredations during tribal fights and difficulties in marketing have inhibited the development of a significant commercial agriculture sector and in any case it is Mount Hagen, not Wabag, that is the commercial metropole. Law and order problems, considerable violent crime and chronic house break-ins have continue to compromise the amenity of town life. A fine public library established by the Australian administration immediately before Independence in 1975 is long since dispersed, book pages being desirable for rolling cigarettes and reading books not having taken hold. The Enga Provincial Government buildings have been burned to the ground more than once.

Further reading

E.A. Markham. A Papua New Guinea Sojourn. Manchester: Carcanet Press Ltd, 1998. E.A. Markham was a media co-ordinator in Wabag in 1983-85 working as a VSO

VSO

VSO is a three-letter acronym with multiple meanings, as described below:* Voluntary Service Overseas, an international development charity* Valdosta Southern Railroad...

volunteer.