Four Caroline states share a Texas-sized ocean backyard
The Federated States of Micronesia joins Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, and Kosrae across the Carolines—small land area but nearly three million square kilometres of EEZ, fourteenth-largest on Earth. Capital Palikir sits on Pohnpei; the federation left the U.S.-run Trust Territory via a 1979 constitution and 1986 Compact sovereignty path.
The federation takes in most of the Caroline Islands apart from Palau, running almost 2,700 kilometres from west to east just north of the equator, with around 607 islands totalling about 702 square kilometres of land. Its neighbours are Palau and the Philippines to the west, Nauru and the Marshalls to the east and Guam and the Marianas to the north, and it sits roughly 2,900 kilometres north of eastern Australia and 4,000 south-west of Honolulu. Weno, a municipality in Chuuk Lagoon, is the largest city.
Each state centres on one or more volcanic high islands, and all except Kosrae also have many outer atolls. The name Micronesia can mean either this country or the broader region of thousands of islands shared among several nations.
People settled here more than 4,000 years ago, and a loose system of chiefs later gave way to a more centralised economic and religious order focused on Yap. On Pohnpei's eastern edge lies Nan Madol, a UNESCO site of small artificial islets laced with canals, nicknamed the Venice of the Pacific. It was the seat of the Saudeleur dynasty, which united some 25,000 Pohnpeians from about AD 500 until its collapse around 1500.
Portuguese explorers seeking the Spice Islands, then Spaniards, arrived in the sixteenth century. Spain administered the islands from Manila and in 1887 founded Santiago de la Ascensión, today's Kolonia. When German influence grew, Pope Leo XIII was asked in 1885 to settle the dispute and confirmed Spanish rule with free German access. From 1947 to 1994 the United States administered the islands within a UN trust territory; a constitution was ratified on 10 May 1979, and independence came on 3 November 1986.
Source: Federated States of Micronesia
