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Pope Francis arrived on Monday in East Timor, a predominantly Catholic nation in Southeast Asia, for a three-day visit that will include an open-air celebration of Mass the Vatican says may include more than half the population of 1.3 million.

The 87-year-old pontiff is on an ambitious 12-day visit to four countries across Southeast Asia and Oceania, his longest overseas journey yet, Reuters reports.

He came to East Timor from Papua New Guinea, where on Sunday he delivered medical supplies to a small town located at the edge of a vast jungle, in one of the most remote areas of the world.

Francis landed in Dili, the Timorese capital, on Monday afternoon. He was met at the airport by President Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta and a group of school children dressed in traditional outfits, who offered him flowers and a tais, a woven ceremonial scarf.

East Timor, a half-island nation north of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, after a brutal, decades-long occupation. Francis is the second pope to visit, following John Paul II, who came in 1989, in a trip that gave the country's independence movement an historic boost.

The country is likely the most Catholic in the world, with the Vatican saying some 96% of Timorese are adherents to the faith.

Organisers are preparing for some 750,000 people to attend a Mass with Francis on Tuesday at the Tasitolu, a wide, dusty coastal area where Indonesian forces were known to bury killed Timorese independence fighters.

Since independence, the country has struggled with rebuilding its infrastructure and economy. In 2014, the World Bank estimated that some 42% of Timorese live in poverty and that some 47% of children are stunted because of malnutrition.