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Micronesia (, )from mikrós "small" and νῆσος nêsos "island" is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of approximately 2,000 small islands in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: Maritime Southeast Asia to the west, Polynesia to the east, and Melanesia to the south—as well as with the wider community of Austronesian peoples.
The region has a tropical marine climate and is part of the Oceanian realm. It includes four main —the Caroline Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands — as well as numerous islands that are not part of any archipelago.
Political control of areas within Micronesia varies depending on the island, and is distributed among six sovereign nations. Some of the Caroline Islands are part of the Palau and some are part of the Federated States of Micronesia (often shortened to "FSM" or "Micronesia"—not to be confused with the identical name for the overall region). The Gilbert Islands (along with the Phoenix Islands and the Line Islands in Polynesia) comprise the Republic of Kiribati. The Mariana Islands are affiliated with the United States; some of them belong to the U.S. Territory of Guam and the rest belong to the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The island of Nauru is its own sovereign nation. The Marshall Islands all belong to the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The sovereignty of Wake Island is contested: it is claimed both by the United States and by the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The United States has actual possession of Wake Island, which is under the immediate administration of the United States Air Force.
Notwithstanding the fact that the notion of "Micronesia" has been quite well established since 1832 and has been used ever since, by most popular works, this set does not correspond to any geomorphological, archaeological, linguistic, ethnic or cultural unity, but on the contrary represents a disparate ensemble, with no real deep unity. In fact, "Micronesian people" does not exist as a subset of the sea-migrating Austronesian people, who may also include the Polynesians people and the hypothetical Australo-Melanesian or " people".Patrick Vinton Kirch, On the Road of the Winds: an Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000:5.
Human settlement of Micronesia began several millennia ago. Based on the current scientific consensus, the Austronesian peoples originated from a prehistoric seaborne migration, known as the Austronesian expansion, from pre-Han Chinese Taiwan, at around 3000 to 1500 BCE. Austronesians reached the northernmost Philippines, specifically the Batanes, by around 2200 BCE. Austronesians were the first people to invent oceangoing sailing technologies (notably , , lashed-lug boat building, and the crab claw sail), which enabled their rapid dispersal into the islands of the Indo-Pacific. (1981). 9780890961070, Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 9780890961070 (2025). 9780071594561, International Marine/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780071594561 From 2000 BCE they assimilated (or were assimilated by) the earlier populations on the islands in their migration pathway. (1989). 9780198576952, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198576952
The earliest known contact of Europeans with Micronesia was in 1521, when Magellan expedition landed in the Mariana Islands. Jules Dumont d'Urville is usually credited with coining the term "Micronesia" in 1832, but in fact, used this term a year earlier. « Although based on a superficial understanding of the Pacific islanders, Dumont d'Urville's tripartite classification stuck. Indeed, these categories — Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians — became so deeply entrenched in Western anthropological thought that it is difficult even now to break out the mould in which they entrap us (Thomas, 1989). Such labels provide handy geographical referents, yet they mislead us greatly if we take them to be meaningful segments of cultural history. Only Polynesia has stood the tests of time and increased knowledge, as a category with historical significance », Patrick Vinton Kirch, On the Road of the Winds : an Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000 : 5.
There are four main island groups in Micronesia:
This does not include the separate island nation of Nauru, along with other distinctly separate islands and smaller island groups.
Bikini Atoll is an atoll in the Marshall Islands. There are 23 islands in the Bikini Atoll. The islands of Bokonijien, Aerokojlol and part of Nam were destroyed during nuclear tests that occurred there. The islands are composed of low coral limestone and sand. The average elevation is only about above low tide level.
Further migrations by other Austronesians also followed, likely from Sulawesi, settling Palau and Yap by around 1000 BCE. The details of this colonization, however, are not very well known. In 200 BCE, a loosely connected group of Lapita colonists from Island Melanesia also migrated back northwards, settling the islands of eastern Micronesia almost simultaneously. This region became the center of another wave of migrations radiating outwards, reconnecting them with other settled islands in western Micronesia.
Around 800 CE, a second wave of migrants from Southeast Asia arrived in the Marianas, beginning what is now known as the Latte period. These new settlers built large structures with distinctive capped stone pillars known as haligi. They also reintroduced rice (which did not survive earlier voyages), making the Northern Marianas the only islands in Oceania where rice was grown prior to European contact. However, it was considered a high-status crop and only used in rituals. It did not become a staple until after Spanish colonization.
Construction of Nan Madol, a complex made from Columnar basalt in Pohnpei, began in around 1180 CE. This was followed by the construction of the Leluh complex in Kosrae in around 1200.
Further contact was made during the sixteenth century, although often initial encounters were very brief. Documents relating to the 1525 voyage of Diogo da Rocha suggest that he made the first European contact with inhabitants of the Caroline Islands, possibly staying on the Ulithi atoll for four months and encountering Yap. Marshall Islanders were encountered by the expedition of Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón in 1529. Other contact with the Yap islands occurred in 1625.
When Russian explorer Otto von Kotzebue visited the Marshall Islands in 1817, he noted that Marshallese families practiced infanticide after the birth of a third child as a form of population planning due to frequent .
In 1819, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions—a Protestant group—brought their Puritan ways to Polynesia. Soon after, the Hawaiian Missionary Society was founded and sent missionaries into Micronesia. Conversion was not met with as much opposition, as the local religions were less developed (at least according to Western ethnographic accounts). In contrast, it took until the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries for missionaries to fully convert the inhabitants of Melanesia; however, a comparison of the cultural contrast must take into account the fact that Melanesia has always had deadly strains of malaria present in various degrees and distributions throughout its history (see De Rays Expedition) and up to the present; conversely, Micronesia does not have—and never seems to have had—any malarial mosquitos nor pathogens on any of its islands in the past.
The treaty, which was signed by Spanish Prime Minister Francisco Silvela on 12 February 1899, transferred the Caroline Islands (Kosrae in the east to Palau in the west), the Mariana Islands, and other possessions to Germany. Under German control, the islands became a protectorate and were administered from German New Guinea. Nauru had already been annexed and claimed as a colony by Germany in 1888.
During World War I, Germany's Pacific island territories were seized and became League of Nations mandates in 1923. Nauru became an mandate, while Germany's other territories in Micronesia were given as a mandate to Japan and were named the South Seas Mandate. During World War II, Nauru and Banaba were occupied by Japanese troops, with also an occupation of some of the Gilbert Islands and were bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. Following Japan's defeat in World War II its mandate became a United Nations Trusteeship administered by the United States as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Nauru became independent in 1968.
| Chuuk State 48.8%, 24.2%, 6.2%, 5.2%, Yap outer islands 4.5%, Asian 1.8%, Polynesian 1.5%, other 7.8% |
| Chamorro people 37.1%, Philippines 26.3%, other Pacific islander 11.3%, white 6.9%, other 8.6%, mixed 9.8% |
| Micronesian 98.8% |
| Marshall Islands 92.1%, mixed Marshallese 5.9%, other 2% |
| Nauruan people 58%, other Pacific Islander 26%, Chinese 8%, European 8% |
| Asian 56.3%, Pacific islander 36.3%, White 1.8%, other 0.8%, mixed 4.8% |
| 69.9%, Filipino 15.3%, Chinese 4.9%, other Asian 2.4%, white 1.9%, Carolinian 1.4%, other Micronesian 1.1%, other 3.2% |
Most residents of Micronesia can freely move to and work within, the United States. Relatives working in the US who send money home to relatives represent the primary source of individual income. Additional individual income comes mainly from government jobs and work within shops and restaurants.
The tourist industry consists mainly of scuba divers that come to see the coral reefs, do wall dives and visit sunken ships from WWII. Major stops for scuba divers in approximate order are Palau, Chuuk, Yap and Pohnpei. Some private yacht owners visit the area for months or years at a time. However, they tend to stay mainly at ports of entry and are too few in number to be counted as a major source of income.
Copra production used to be a more significant source of income, however, world prices have dropped in part to large palm plantations that are now planted in places like Borneo.
Because of this mixture of descent, many of the ethnicities of Micronesia feel closer to some groups in Melanesia, or the Philippines. A good example of this are the Yapese people who are related to Austronesian tribes in the northern Philippines. Genetics also show a significant number of Micronesian have Japanese paternal ancestry: 9.5% of males from Micronesia as well as 0.2% in East Timor carry the Haplogroup D-M55.
There are also substantial Asian communities found across the region, most notably in the Northern Mariana Islands where they form the majority and smaller communities of Europeans who have migrated from the United States or are descendants of settlers during European colonial rule in Micronesia.
Though they are all geographically part of the same region, they all have very different colonial histories. The US-administered areas of Micronesia have a unique experience that sets them apart from the rest of the Pacific. Micronesia has great economic dependency on its former or current motherlands, something only comparable to the French Pacific. Sometimes, the term American Micronesia is used to acknowledge the difference in cultural heritage.
A 2011 survey found that 93.1% of Micronesian are Christians; a survey in 2022 showed that 99% were Christian.
| Federated States of Micronesia | 702 | 149.5 | Palikir | FM | |||
| Guam (United States) | 549 | 296.7 | Hagåtña | GU | |||
| Kiribati | 811 | 141.1 | South Tarawa | KI | |||
| Marshall Islands | 181 | 293.2 | Majuro | MH | |||
| Nauru | 21 | 540.3 | Yaren District ( de facto) | NR | |||
| Northern Mariana Islands (United States) | 477 | 115.4 | Saipan | MP | |||
| Palau | 458 | 46.9 | NgerulmudOn 7 October 2006, government officials moved their offices in the former capital of Koror to Ngerulmud in the state of Melekeok, located northeast of Koror on Babeldaob. | PW | |||
| Wake Island (United States) | 2 | 150 | 75 | Wake Island | UM | ||
| Micronesia (total) | 3,307 | 526,343 | 163.5 |
The immigration of Carolinians to Saipan began in the early 19th century, after the Spain reduced the local population of Chamorro people natives to just 3,700. They began to immigrate mostly sailing from small canoes from other islands, which a typhoon previously devastated. The Carolinians have a much darker complexion than the native Chamorro people.
The Chamorro language is included in the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian family. Because Guam was colonized by Spain for over 300 years, many words derive from the Spanish language. The traditional Chamorro number system was replaced by Spanish numbers.
The origin of the Nauruan people has not yet been finally determined. It can possibly be explained by the last Malayo-Pacific human migration (c. 1200). It was probably seafaring or shipwrecked Polynesians or Melanesians that established themselves in Nauru because there was not already an indigenous people present, whereas the Micronesians were already crossed with the Melanesians in this area.
Japanese rule in Micronesia also led to Japanese people settling the islands and marrying native spouses. Kessai Note, the former president of the Marshall Islands has partial Japanese ancestry by way of his paternal grandfather, and Manny Mori, the former president of the Federated States of Micronesia, is descended from one of the first settlers from Japan, Mori Koben.
A significant number of Micronesians were shown to have paternal genetic relations with Japanese Haplogroup D-M55. Genetic testing found that 9.5% of males from Micronesia as well as 0.2% in East Timor carry what is believed to reflect recent admixture from Japan. That is, D-M116.1 (D1b1) is generally believed to be a primary subclade of D-M64.1 (D1b), possibly as a result of the Japanese military occupation of Southeast Asia during World War II.
On the eastern edge of the Federated States of Micronesia, the languages Nukuoro language and Kapingamarangi represent an extreme westward extension of the Polynesian branch of Oceanic.
Finally, there are two Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in Micronesia that do not belong to the Oceanic languages: Chamorro in the Mariana Islands and Palauan language in Palau.
The first half of the 20th century saw a downturn in Micronesia's cultural integrity and a strong foreign influence from both western and Japanese Imperialist powers. A number of historical artistic traditions, especially sculpture, ceased to be practiced, although other art forms continued, including traditional architecture and weaving. Independence from colonial powers in the second half of the century resulted in a renewed interest in, and respect for, traditional arts. A notable movement of contemporary art also appeared in Micronesia towards the end of the 20th century.
Marshallese cuisine comprises the fare and foodways of the Marshall Islands, and includes local foods such as breadfruit, taro root, pandanus and seafood, among others.
Palauan cuisine includes local foods such as cassava, taro, yam, potato, fish and pork. Western cuisine is favored among young Palauans.
The CariPac consists of institutions of higher education in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. The Agricultural Development in the American Pacific is a partnership of the University of Hawaii, American Samoa Community College, College of Micronesia, Northern Marianas College and the University of Guam.
In the Federated States of Micronesia, education is required for citizens aged 6 to 13, and is important to their economy. (1996). 9781573060233, Bess Press. ISBN 9781573060233 The literacy rate for citizens aged 15 to 24 is 98.8%. The College of Micronesia-FSM has a campus in each of the four states with its national campus in the capital city of Palikir, Pohnpei. The COM-FSM system also includes the Fisheries and Maritime Institute (FMI) on the Yap islands.
The public education in Guam is organized by the Guam Department of Education. Guam also has several educational institutions, such as University of Guam, Pacific Islands University and Guam Community College, There is also the Guam Public Library System and the Umatac Outdoor Library.
Weriyeng is one of the last two schools of traditional navigation found in the central Caroline Islands in Micronesia, the other being Fanur.
The Northern Marianas College is a two-year community college located in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).
The College of the Marshall Islands is a community college in the Marshall Islands.
The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United Nations Trusteeship administered by the United States, borrowed heavily from United States law in establishing the Trust Territory Code during the Law and Development movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Many of those provisions were adopted by the new Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia when the Federated States of Micronesia became self-governing in 1979.
Traditional beliefs suggest that the music can be presented to people in and trances, rather than being written by themselves. Micronesian folk music is, like Polynesian music, primarily vocal-based.
In the Marshall Islands, the roro is a kind of traditional chant, usually about ancient legends and performed to give guidance during navigation and strength for mothers in labour. Modern bands have blended the unique songs of each island in the country with modern music. Though drums are not generally common in Micronesian music, one-sided hourglass-shaped drums are a major part of Marshallese music. There is a traditional Marshallese dance called beet, which is influenced by Spanish folk dances; in it, men and women side-step in parallel lines. There is a kind of Tirere performed by the Jobwa, nowadays only for very special occasions.
Popular music, both from Micronesia and from other areas of the world, is played on radio stations in Micronesia.
Nauru has two national sports, weightlifting and Australian rules football. According to 2007 Australian Football League International Census figures, there are around 180 players in the Nauru senior competition and 500 players in the junior competition, representing a participation rate of over 30% overall for the country.
Micronesian mythology comprises the traditional belief systems of the people of Micronesia. There is no single belief system in the islands of Micronesia, as each island region has its own mythological beings. It was noted that 2.7% of the population followed folk religions in 2014.
There are several significant figures and myths in the traditions of the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, and Kiribati.
Shinto shrine dating from during or after World War II exist in some Micronesian countries.
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