50 Fun Facts About Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands lie in which ocean?

They sit about halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

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

Roughly half the country's population lives there.

How many coral atolls make up the Marshall Islands?

Add five main islands and about 1,220 tiny islets.

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?

It is the highest proportion of water to land of any sovereign state.

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?

Sea level around the islands has risen 3.4 mm a year since 1993, more than double the global rate.

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?

John Marshall passed through in 1788 while sailing on from delivering convicts to Australia.

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

Alonso de Salazar's crew could not land because of strong currents and deep water.

A 1528 Spanish expedition nicknamed the islands 'Los Pintados' because the inhabitants were what?

The name means 'the Painted Ones'.

Marshallese navigators built stick charts to map what?

Pilots memorised the charts and left them at home when they set sail.

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

Coconut fibre supplied the rope.

What is the Marshallese title for a paramount chief?

Four of the first five presidents were traditional paramount chiefs.

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

German copra traders had dominated the economy through the 1870s and 1880s.

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

Copra is dried coconut meat; it remains the most important commercial crop.

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

The civilian South Seas Government ran the mandate from Palau.

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

The full invasion of the Marshalls followed on 31 January 1944.

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

Two atolls bore the brunt of them and remain contaminated.

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

It produced heavy fallout across the region and was the first of many tests there.

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

It was more than twice as large as predicted because of unforeseen reactions involving lithium-7.

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

Its name means Lucky Dragon No. 5; the inhabited atolls of Rongelap and Rongerik were also dusted.

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

They were set off on the reef, inside the atoll, in the air and underwater.

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

The two-piece design borrowed the atoll's name for its explosive effect.

Bikini Atoll received which international designation in 2010?

Its 167 residents were relocated in 1946 and their descendants still live in exile.

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?

Amata Kabua became the first president.

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

The US handles defence and pays subsidies; Marshallese may live and work in the US without a visa.

What currency does the Marshall Islands use?

A 2018 law to create a sovereign cryptocurrency as legal tender was repealed in 2025.

What is the name of the Marshall Islands' legislature?

Its 33 senators elect the president.

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

Her predecessor Casten Nemra lost a no-confidence vote after just two weeks.

The Marshall Islands joined the United Nations in which year?

It had joined the regional Community organisation in 1983.

What are the two official languages of the Marshall Islands?

Marshallese is one of the Oceanic languages.

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

About 4,300 Marshallese had relocated there, drawn by poultry-industry jobs.

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.

The Marshallese capital is the world's busiest port for the transshipment of which fish?

A local plant exports processed fish to the US under the Bumble Bee brand.

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

Any owner can fly the flag; no Marshallese ownership is required.

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?

The white and orange band stands for the two island chains as well as peace and courage.

All five SpaceX Falcon 1 rockets were launched from Omelek Island, part of which atoll?

The fourth launch was the first privately developed liquid-fuelled rocket to reach orbit.

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

The United States has administered it since 1899 and 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?

In the 19th century it was known as Eschscholtz Atoll; its 23 islands surround a 594 square km lagoon at the northern end of the Ralik Chain.

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

They were first moved to Rongerik, which could not feed them, and later to Kwajalein and then Kili Island in 1948.

What was the combined yield of the 23 nuclear devices detonated at Bikini Atoll?

Testing began with Operation Crossroads in July 1946; the Baker shot caused the first immediate, concentrated fallout from a nuclear explosion.

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?

Unlike Ivy Mike's cryogenic fuel, the solid lithium deuteride made the bomb deliverable; it weighed 23,500 pounds.

Castle Bravo yielded 15 Mt. How much had its designers predicted?

Los Alamos had assumed the lithium-7 in the fuel was inert, but it too contributed to the fusion reactions and neutron production.

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

It was visible from Kwajalein over 250 miles away and left a crater 6,500 feet in diameter.

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

He held total authority over detonation, above the military commander; fallout then drifted onto inhabited Rongelap and Utirik.