Micronesia

Micronesia has hundreds of islands far out in the Pacific Ocean.

It has four parts called states. Each one has its own big island.

The Federated States of Micronesia is in the western Pacific Ocean, in the Caroline Islands. It has more than 600 islands and islets in four states, from west to east: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae. The islands stretch about 2,800 kilometers from east to west.

The capital is Palikir, on Pohnpei, the largest island. English is the official language, and the money is the US dollar. The 2023 census counted 75,817 people. The photo shows the stone walls of Nan Madol.

The federation's islands span about 2,800 km east to west and 965 km north to south, with only about 702 km² of land; Palau lies to the west and the Marshall Islands to the east. The national ocean agency NORMA counts 607 islands, gives English as the official language and names Yapese, Chuukese, Pohnpeian and Kosraean among the island languages.

The Population and Housing Census of 2023 counted 75,817 people: 33,885 in Chuuk, 26,102 in Pohnpei and 10,739 in Yap, with the rest in Kosrae. The photo shows overgrown basalt walls at Nan Madol.

Palikir is the capital. Its buildings have big sloping roofs.

Nan Madol is an old stone town built on little islands.

Palikir, on Pohnpei, is the capital. The photo shows the buildings of the national Congress and Supreme Court there, with tall palm trees along the path.

Off the southeast coast of Pohnpei lies Nan Madol: more than 100 islets built with walls of basalt and coral boulders between 1200 and 1500 CE. They hold the remains of stone palaces, tombs and homes. UNESCO added Nan Madol to its World Heritage list in 2016.

Palikir on Pohnpei, the largest island, is the capital; the photo shows the Congress and Supreme Court buildings (April 2025).

Nan Madol, a series of more than 100 artificial islets off southeast Pohnpei walled with basalt and coral boulders, holds stone palaces, tombs and residential areas built between 1200 and 1500 CE as the ceremonial center of the Saudeleur dynasty. UNESCO inscribed it in 2016 and placed it at once on the List of World Heritage in Danger, chiefly because silted waterways let mangroves spread and undermine the structures.

Some islands are tall and green, made by volcanoes.

Others are low rings of coral around a lagoon.

Micronesia has high islands and low coral atolls. In the east, coral covers mountains made by volcanoes. In the west, the islands are pieces of the Earth's crust that were folded and pushed up out of the sea.

The highest point is Dolohmwar on Pohnpei, 791 meters. It is warm all year, about 27 °C, and Pohnpei is one of the wettest inhabited islands in the world. The photo shows Ulithi, an atoll in Micronesia, from the air.

Britannica divides the Carolines into two physical units: in the east, coral caps sit on mountains of volcanic origin; in the west, the islands are sections of the Earth's crust that were folded and pushed above the sea. The highest point is Dolohmwar on Pohnpei (791 m).

The average temperature is about 27 °C (NORMA). Across the Carolines, rain falls evenly through the year, generally more than 3,050 mm a year on populated islands and more than 4,570 mm on the windward sides of high islands, and more than 20 typhoons form in the Carolines in an average year (Britannica). The photo, taken from the air in July 1992 (NOAA), shows Falalop and a second islet on the reef of Ulithi Atoll, separated by a deep pass.

Coral reefs ring many of the islands.

On Pohnpei, people have long eaten breadfruit, bananas, taro and fish.

Fishing and farming feed many families. On Pohnpei, the traditional diet is built on breadfruit, bananas, taro, yams and cassava, with coconut, fish and seafood. Since about the 1970s, people have eaten more imported foods such as white rice, flour and sugar.

The ocean earns money for the country too. Foreign fishing boats pay fees to catch tuna in Micronesia's waters, and tuna is sold abroad.

Britannica's summary names subsistence farming and fishing as the main activities and US government grants as the main source of revenue. On Pohnpei, starchy staples (breadfruit, banana, taro, yam and cassava), coconut, fish and seafood formed the traditional diet; since about the 1970s, imported white rice, flour and sugar have been eaten more (McGill University's Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment).

The World Bank (2022) calls the tuna fishery pivotal for revenue: in 2020, 243 foreign vessels were licensed to fish in the country's waters, and fishery access and license fees were worth about US$70 million on average.

People on different islands speak different languages.

On Yap, people once traded giant stone wheels as special valuables.

Micronesians are very diverse. Local languages include Yapese, Chuukese, Pohnpeian and Kosraean, and on two atolls, Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro, people have a Polynesian culture. Most people are Christian.

Yap is famous for its stone money: big limestone discs with a hole in the middle, some as wide as 3.7 meters. Yapese sailors quarried the stone on Palau, about 450 kilometers away, and carried it home by canoe.

The people are mostly Micronesian, but Britannica describes great diversity of physical types, cultures and languages across the Carolines, with Melanesian and Philippine influences in the west and Polynesian traits in the east; Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi atolls are western outliers of Polynesian culture. NORMA gives the population as about 50 percent Catholic and 47 percent Protestant.

Yap's rai, doughnut-shaped discs of limestone from a few inches to 3.7 m across, served as exchange valuables; their worth depended on the work of quarrying, the finish and each stone's history. Yapese quarried them in Palau, about 450 km southwest, with Palauan chiefs' permission; archaeologists recorded about ten quarries (Houston Museum of Natural Science, 2015).