Parama Island is an island close off the south coast of 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 located 17 km east of Daru

Daru

Daru is the capital of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. The township is entirely located on an island that goes by the same name, which is located near the mouth of the Fly River on the western side of the Gulf, just north of Torres Strait and Far North Queensland...

, the provincial capital of Western Province (Papua New Guinea)

Western Province (Papua New Guinea)

Western Province is a coastal province in southwestern Papua New Guinea, bordering the Indonesian province of Papua. The provincial capital is Daru, on the island of Daru. The largest town in the province is Tabubil...

, at the southernmost extreme of the Fly River

Fly River

The Fly at , is the second longest river, after the Sepik, in Papua New Guinea. The Fly is the largest river in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, and overall ranks as the twenty-fifth largest river in the world by volume of discharge...

 delta, and at the northeastern corner of the Torres Strait

Torres Strait

The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...

. It is the northernmost of the Torres Strait Islands

Torres Strait Islands

The Torres Strait Islands are a group of at least 274 small islands which lie in Torres Strait, the waterway separating far northern continental Australia's Cape York Peninsula and the island of New Guinea but Torres Strait Island known and Recognize as Nyumaria.The islands are mostly part of...

, and at the same time the southernmost of the Fly River delta. Bampton Point, its southernmost point, marks the southwestern corner of the Gulf of Papua

Gulf of Papua

The Gulf of Papua is a 400 kilometer wide region on the south shore of New Guinea. Some of New Guinea's largest rivers, such as the Fly River, Turama River, Kikori River and Purari River, flow into the gulf, making it a large delta. While the western coast is characterized by swampy tidal...

. The Coral Sea

Coral Sea

The Coral Sea is a marginal sea off the northeast coast of Australia. It is bounded in the west by the east coast of Queensland, thereby including the Great Barrier Reef, in the east by Vanuatu and by New Caledonia, and in the north approximately by the southern extremity of the Solomon Islands...

 is southeast. Torres Strait is south and southwest, specifically the Great Northeast Channel, which separates Parama Island from the closest Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n (Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

) island, Bramble Cay

Bramble Cay

Bramble Cay, also called Naizab Kaur, Massaramcoer or Baramaki, and located at the northeastern edge of the Torres Strait Islands of Queensland and at the same time at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef, is the northernmost point of land of Australia...

, 48 km ESE

ESE

ESE or Ese may refer to:*East-southeast, a cardinal direction*ESE , Exceptional Student Education*Easy Serving Espresso Pod*Ethical Sensory Extrovert*European School of Economics*European Society of Endocrinology...

.

Parama is roughly rectangular in shape, 9.6 km long and up to 5.7 km wide, with a shore length of 27.7 km and an area of 37 km². It is a low, flat, muddy and mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 covered island. It is separated from the mainland by Toro Passage, which is 400 to 700 meters wide and seven kilometers long, and 1.8 to 5.5 meters deep.

All of the population of about 300 live in Parama village on the eastern side, facing the Gulf of Papua. Only the area around the village is cultivated. The village is divided into six clan divisions. The clans, which have names of animals, are listed, from north to south (1991):

1. Doriomu (Shark, formerly Tebere) (school west outside of clan division)
2. Maruadai (Marowadai) (Cassowary) (with church: United Church)
3. Hegeredai (Dingo)
4. Oromorubi (Dog)
5. Miaridai (Crocodile) (with hospital)
6. Gaidai (Eagle)

A later list (1995) mentions only five clans, thereby replacing Hegeredai and Oromorubi with Sobogu.

In the southwest of the island is Gaziro (Gasiri), a temporary fishing camp also used by mainlanders.

The fringing reef on the eastern shore in front of the village, the "home reef", is called Podomaza.

Worimo Reef, a drying reef of rocks and sand, over which the sea breaks heavily during the southeast trades, extends eight kilometers SSE

SSE

-Computing:*Server-sent events, a technology to push content to web clients*Simple Sharing Extensions, a specification that extends RSS from unidirectional to bidirectional information flows*SPARQL Syntax Expressions*Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition...

from Bampton Point. It further extends to Merrie England Shoals, with depths of less than two meters. The area of the reef, mostly submerged, is 18.8 km².

Ellengowan Rock, a submerged rock with a depth of only 1.1 meters, is located 11 km east of Parama Island.