50 Fun Facts About Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands lie in which ocean?

The Marshall Islands lie in the central Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, just north of the equator.

What is the capital and largest city of the Marshall Islands?

Majuro is both the capital and the largest city; roughly half of all Marshallese live on the atoll, mostly along the Delap-Uliga-Djarrit strip.

How many coral atolls make up the Marshall Islands?

The country consists of 29 coral atolls plus five isolated islands, together holding roughly 1,200 islets, though the total land area is only about 180 square kilometres.

What are the names of the country's two island chains?

Ratak means 'sunrise' and Ralik means 'sunset'.

Roughly what percentage of Marshall Islands territory is lagoon water?

About 98% of the Marshall Islands' territory is lagoon water: roughly 11,700 square kilometres of lagoon surround only about 181 square kilometres of dry land.

Which of these is NOT one of the four countries built entirely on atolls?

Fiji has volcanic high islands, unlike the four atoll nations.

What is the average elevation of the entire country above sea level?

The country's average elevation is about 2 metres above sea level; even its highest natural point, on Likiep Atoll, stands only around 10 metres up.

Which is the largest atoll in the Marshall Islands, with a lagoon of about 1,700 square km?

It hosts the US Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site.

The Marshall Islands are named after a sea captain of which nationality?

The islands are named after John Marshall, a British sea captain who sailed through in 1788 on the Scarborough after delivering convicts to New South Wales.

Which European power was the first to sight the islands, in 1526?

Spain's Alonso de Salazar sighted the islands in August 1526, reaching Bokak Atoll, but strong currents and deep water stopped his crew from landing.

Spanish sailors nicknamed the islands 'Los Pintados' because the inhabitants were what?

'Los Pintados' means 'the Painted Ones': Alvaro de Saavedra's Spanish crew found the islanders heavily tattooed when they touched at the atolls while trying to sail home from the Moluccas.

Marshallese navigators built stick charts to map what?

Marshallese stick charts mapped ocean swell patterns, showing with lashed palm ribs and shells how swells bend and cross around atolls; navigators memorised them and left them ashore.

Traditional Marshallese sailing canoes, called walaps, were built from the wood of which tree?

Walap hulls were carved from breadfruit wood, the islands' best large timber; coconut-fibre sennit lashed the planks and pandanus leaves were woven into the sails.

What is the Marshallese title for a paramount chief?

Iroijlaplap is the title of a Marshallese paramount chief, ranking above the iroij and the alap lineage heads; several early presidents held the title.

Which empire annexed the Marshall Islands as a protectorate in 1885?

Germany declared a protectorate over the Marshall Islands in 1885, after its traders had dominated the islands' commerce through the 1870s and 1880s; Jaluit became the administrative centre.

Which product drove the islands' colonial economy in the 19th century?

Copra, dried coconut meat pressed for oil, drove the 19th-century trade; the Jaluit Gesellschaft shipped it from the atolls, and it stayed the islands' main cash crop into the 20th century.

Which country seized the islands in 1914 and later ran them as a League of Nations mandate?

Japan seized the islands in 1914 and governed them from 1920 under a League of Nations mandate; its civilian South Seas Government ran the territory from Koror in Palau.

The US Navy's strikes on four Marshallese atolls on 1 February 1942 were notable as what?

The 1 February 1942 carrier raids by Enterprise and Yorktown on the Marshalls were the first American air attacks on Japanese territory in the war; the full invasion followed on 31 January 1944.

Between 1946 and 1958, how many nuclear tests did the United States conduct in the Marshall Islands?

The United States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958, all at two northern atolls, beginning with Operation Crossroads in July 1946.

The world's first hydrogen bomb, codenamed 'Mike', was tested in 1952 at which atoll?

Ivy Mike was detonated on 1 November 1952 at Enewetak Atoll, vaporising the islet of Elugelab and leaving a crater nearly two kilometres wide; the atoll had hosted tests since 1948.

What was the yield of the 1954 Castle Bravo test, the most powerful US nuclear explosion ever?

Castle Bravo, fired at Bikini on 1 March 1954, yielded 15 megatons, two and a half times the 6 megatons predicted, because lithium-7 in the fuel bred extra tritium.

Fallout from Castle Bravo contaminated the crew of which Japanese fishing boat?

The Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon No. 5) was showered with Bravo's fallout some 150 km from Bikini; radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama died that September, and Rongelap and Utirik islanders were also dusted.

How many nuclear devices did the US detonate at Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958?

The United States detonated 23 nuclear devices at Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958, set off on the reef, on the sea surface, in the air and underwater; the two Operation Crossroads shots of July 1946 came first.

Four days after the first Bikini test in July 1946, Louis Réard named what after the atoll?

Réard unveiled his two-piece swimsuit, the bikini, in Paris on 5 July 1946, four days after the Able shot, hoping its name would suggest the same explosive effect.

Bikini Atoll received which international designation in 2010?

Bikini Atoll was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2010 for its nuclear-test legacy, including the sunken fleet of Operation Crossroads in its lagoon and the Bravo crater.

What is the Runit Dome?

There are ongoing fears that the deteriorating structure could leak plutonium.

On what date did the United States recognise the Marshall Islands' constitution and government?

The Marshall Islands' constitution took effect on 1 May 1979, the date the United States recognised the new government; the day is marked as Constitution Day.

What is the name of the agreement that governs the Marshall Islands' relationship with the United States?

The Compact of Free Association, first in force in 1986 and since renewed, gives the United States defence responsibility and funding duties while letting Marshallese live and work in the US without visas.

What currency does the Marshall Islands use?

The Marshall Islands uses the US dollar as its only currency, a legacy of the postwar Trust Territory years; it has no central bank and issues only commemorative coins of its own.

What is the name of the Marshall Islands' legislature?

The Nitijela is the 33-seat legislature of the Marshall Islands, which elects the president from among its members; a council of traditional chiefs advises it.

Who became the first female president of the Marshall Islands in January 2016?

Hilda Heine, a former education minister, became president on 28 January 2016 after Casten Nemra was ousted by a no-confidence vote two weeks into his term.

The Marshall Islands joined the United Nations in which year?

The Marshall Islands joined the United Nations on 17 September 1991, the same day as the Federated States of Micronesia, a year after the UN trusteeship formally ended.

What are the two official languages of the Marshall Islands?

Marshallese and English are the official languages; Marshallese, an Oceanic language with a dialect for each island chain, is spoken by nearly everyone, while English is used in government and schools.

Which US city hosts the largest Marshallese community outside the islands?

Springdale, Arkansas, home of Tyson Foods, holds the largest Marshallese community outside the islands; the 2010 census counted about 4,300 Marshallese there, drawn by poultry-plant jobs since the 1980s.

In 2011 the Marshall Islands declared two million sq km of ocean the world's largest what?

All shark fishing is banned there and any by-catch must be released.

In the 2010s the Marshallese capital became the world's busiest transshipment port for which fish?

Tuna: purse seiners unload their catch onto carrier ships in the capital's lagoon, which by 2015 handled more tuna transshipments than any port on earth; a local loining plant supplies the Bumble Bee brand.

As of 2017, the Marshallese ship registry was the second largest in the world after which country's?

Panama's flag of convenience has long led world shipping by tonnage; in 2017 the Marshall Islands registry, run from Virginia by International Registries Inc., overtook Liberia for second place.

The star on the Marshall Islands flag has how many points, more than any other national flag?

They stand for the 24 electoral districts; four long rays mark the main cultural centres.

Who designed the Marshall Islands flag adopted in 1979?

Emlain Kabua, wife of the first president and so the first First Lady, designed the flag adopted in 1979; its orange and white bands stand for the two island chains and for courage and peace.

What is the everyday Marshallese greeting, which also means 'love'?

Yokwe, also spelt Iakwe, is the everyday Marshallese greeting and farewell and also means 'love'; Kaselehlie is Pohnpeian, Alii is Palauan and Mauri is the Kiribati greeting.

The Marshall Islands claims which US-administered territory under the name Ānen Kio?

Wake Island, which the Marshallese call Ānen Kio ('island of the kio flower'), has been administered by the United States since it was annexed in 1899; Washington does not recognise the claim.

The Marshall Islands won five gold medals at the 2023 regional games, all in which sport?

The country has sent athletes to every Olympics since Beijing 2008.

What does the Marshallese name for Bikini Atoll, Pikinni, literally mean?

Pikinni combines pik, 'surface', and ni, 'coconut', so the name means roughly 'coconut place'; Otto von Kotzebue's Russian expedition charted the atoll in the 1820s and named it Eschscholtz Atoll.

How many residents were relocated from Bikini Atoll in 1946 to make way for nuclear tests?

The 167 Bikinians were moved in March 1946, first to Rongerik, which could not feed them, then briefly to a camp on the main military atoll, and finally to Kili Island in November 1948.

What was the combined yield of all the nuclear devices detonated at Bikini Atoll?

The Bikini shots added up to about 77 megatons, most of it from the 1954 Castle and 1956 Redwing series; the two Crossroads bombs of 1946 were mere kilotons by comparison.

Why did coconut plants on Bikini absorb so much radioactive caesium after the tests?

Caesium sits in the same periodic group as potassium, so plants took it up instead; islanders who drank the coconut milk were exposed.

What was the codename of the Castle Bravo device, which used solid lithium deuteride as fuel?

The Bravo device was codenamed SHRIMP; its solid lithium deuteride fuel, unlike the cryogenic deuterium of Ivy Mike's SAUSAGE, made a deliverable bomb weighing about 10.7 tonnes.

Which Operation Crossroads shot was detonated underwater in Bikini's lagoon in July 1946?

Baker, fired 27 metres underwater on 25 July 1946, threw up a column of radioactive water that contaminated the target fleet so badly that the planned third shot, Charlie, was cancelled.

How wide was the fireball Castle Bravo formed within one second of detonation?

Bravo's fireball grew to almost 4.5 miles (7.2 km) across within one second, was seen from more than 250 miles away, and left a crater about 6,500 feet wide and 250 feet deep.

Which scientific director made the call to fire Castle Bravo despite the prevailing winds?

Alvin C. Graves, scientific director of Operation Castle, held final authority over the shot above the military commander and chose to fire despite the wind forecast; fallout then drifted onto inhabited Rongelap and Utirik.