Lavongai

Lavongai, later charted by Europeans as New Hanover, lies northwest of New Ireland in the Bismarck Archipelago. Its coast entered European navigational records during the Dutch voyage of Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten in 1616. Early mapping did not clearly separate all the large islands of this part of the Pacific.

In 1767, Philip Carteret's voyage in the Swallow distinguished New Ireland from New Britain and identified New Hanover as a separate island. His published voyage account called the island New Hanover and its southwestern headland Queen Charlotte's Foreland. These names recorded the progress of European ships and their attempts to resolve the shape of the archipelago. They were additions to the chart of an inhabited island world, whose communities had already travelled its coastal waters long before these voyages.