Western Highlands Province
province of Papua New Guinea

Western Highlands is a province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Mount Hagen. The province covers an area of 4,299 km2, and there are 362,850 inhabitants (2011 census), making the Western Highlands the most densely populated province (apart from the National Capital District). Tea and coffee are grown in the Western Highlands.
Split to create Jiwaka Province
In July 2009, Parliament passed legislation to create two new provinces by 2012. One of these was to be created by removing Jimi District, North Waghi District, and the South Waghi part of Anglimp-South Waghi District from the Western Highlands Province to form the new Jiwaka Province. "Jiwaka" is a portmanteau combining the first two letters each of Jimi, Waghi and Kambia.
Jiwaka Province officially came into being on 17 May 2012.
Economy
The Western Highlands economy is primarily based on coffee. Coffee is grown on plantations and small-holder blocks.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Western Highlands Province” is province of Papua New Guinea. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Western, Highlands and Province, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “province of Papua New Guinea” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q849807. VIAF identifies the subject as 133750559. The Library of Congress control number is n85046935. Authority coordinates are -5.667, 144.500. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2009 and 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Western Highlands Province” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.