peninsula extending from northeastern Papua New Guinea, southwestern Pacific Ocean. The promontory (55 miles 【89 km】 wide) is bounded by the Vitiaz Strait of the Bismarck Sea (north), the Solomon Sea (east), the Huon Gulf (south), and the Markham River (west). The peninsula's terrain rises to more than 13,000 feet (4,000 metres) in the Saruwaged and Rawlinson ranges and the Cromwell Mountains. Receiving 180–190 inches (4,600–4,800 mm) of rainfall annually, it is densely forested. The town of Lae is in the southwest; Finschhafen, in the east. The area near Bobongara, on the east coast, has traces of stone tools and habitation from some 40,000 years ago, among the earliest evidence of human settlement in Oceania. Occupied in 1942 by the Japanese, the peninsula was recaptured by Allied forces in 1943.