NEW HEBRIDES

NEW HEBRIDES CONDOMINIUM (now Vanuatu).

Map of the archipielago.
Second stamp in a set of 13, issued on 06.09.1977 (issue in French language).
Face value: 10 New Hebrides francs.
Printing: Offset lithography.
Size: 29 x 43 mm.

Catalogues
- Michel No. 487.
- Scott No. 559.
- StampWorld No. 487.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 257.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 496.

New Hebrides Condominium (in French, Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides) was the colonial name for the island group in the South Pacific Ocean that is now Vanuatu. Native people had inhabited the islands for three thousand years before the first Europeans arrived in 1606 from a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós. The islands were colonised by both the British and French in the 18th century, shortly after Captain James Cook visited. The two countries eventually signed an agreement making the islands an Anglo-French condominium that divided New Hebrides into two separate communities: one Anglophone and one Francophone. The independent Republic of Vanuatu was created on 30 July 1980.