Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an archipelagic sovereign state in Oceania, in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean, west of the International Date Line and north of the equator. It consists of 29 coral atolls, five main islands and more than a thousand very small ones, arranged in two chains, Ratak in the east and Ralik in the west, and its capital and largest city is Majuro. Austronesian settlers reached the islands thousands of years ago, Spanish expeditions visited in the sixteenth century, and the group was named for the British captain John Marshall, who explored the region in 1788. Germany annexed the islands as a protectorate in 1885, Japan occupied them in 1914, and the United States took them in the Second World War and administered them as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, conducting 67 nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak atolls between 1946 and 1958. In May 1979 the United States recognized the Marshallese constitution and its president, Amata Kabua, and full self-government came through a Compact of Free Association with the United States. The country has been a United Nations member since 1991. Politically it is a presidential parliamentary republic under the 1979 Constitution: the President is both head of state and head of government and is elected by the members of the unicameral legislature, the Nitijela, while a Council of Iroij of twelve paramount chiefs advises. Marshallese and English are the official languages.