Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands are an island country in Micronesia, in the northwestern Pacific just north of the equator. Majuro is the capital and home to about half the people, and Marshallese and English are the official languages.

The country has 29 coral atolls and five main islands in two chains, Ratak in the east and Ralik in the west, and lagoons make up almost all of its area. Austronesian settlers arrived as early as the 2nd millennium BC, bringing coconuts, giant swamp taro, breadfruit and chickens that let people live on the atolls year round. Marshallese navigators made stick charts of the ocean swells to teach students and to plan voyages. Spanish sailors under Alonso de Salazar reached Taongi in 1526, and the islands take their name from the British captain John Marshall, who explored them in 1788.

German copra traders led the economy in the 1870s, and Germany declared a protectorate in 1885. Japan seized the islands in 1914 and ruled them as part of the South Seas Mandate, building airfields on Kwajalein and other atolls before the war. American forces invaded Majuro and Kwajalein in 1944 and then ran the islands within the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

The United States recognized the constitution and President Amata Kabua in May 1979, and a Compact of Free Association signed in 1986 gave full self-government, with Washington responsible for defense. The country joined the United Nations in 1991 and uses the US dollar. Aid under the compact, renewed in 2023 for another 20 years, makes up a large share of the economy, and the national ship registry has grown into one of the largest anywhere.