Island Info

Location

The Marshalls are the eastern most group of islands in Micronesia. They lie about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii, just west of the International Date Line and north of the Equator. The main island is Majuro Atoll. It is located at 7.1Ð North and 171Ð East. The Marshalls are 17 hours ahead of the US Eastern Time zone.

Geography

There are 29 atolls and 5 islands which comprise the Marshalls. An atoll is a ring of coral reef with a lagoon in the middle. The rings are not contiguous and are oval or irregular in shape. On Majuro, the island averages just less than 1/4 mile wide. It is approximately 1/2 mile wide at its widest point. The highest point is about 10 or 12 feet above sea level. The total land area of all the Marshalls is about 70 square miles, yet they cover over 70,000 square miles of ocean. If a map of the Marshalls were overlaid on top of the eastern US, they would extend from Michigan to northern Florida. The islands are composed of two chains which run basically north to south. The eastern chain is the Ratak Chain, and the western group is the Ralik Chain.

Language

The language of the Marshalls is Marshallese. It is from the Malayo-Polynesian family of languages and does not have a difficult grammatical structure. The common greeting in the Marshalls is yokwe. It is used for our hello, good bye, and as a word expressing love. All the Marshall Islands use the same language, but there is a slight difference in dialect between the eastern and western chains. English is the secondary language of the Marshall Islands. In most stores and businesses, one can communicate adequately in English, but there are many who know very little English. On the outer islands, there is very little English spoken. To communicate effectively with the Marshallese, one must learn their language.

Population

According to the 1999 Census, the population of the Marshalls was 50,840 with an annual growth rate of 1.5%. This is significantly less than the 4.2% growth rate in the 1980's, and this decrease has been attributed to large numbers of Marshallese leaving the islands to live abroad, especially in the United States. 42.9% of the population is under 15 years of age. Majuro, the capital, had in 1999 a population of 23,676, and Kwajalein Atoll (where the island of Ebeye is) had 10,902 people. Four of the other outer islands had populations over 1,000.

History

On November 29, 1878, major chiefs of the Marshalls signed a treaty with Germany, and on October 13, 1885, Germany formally annexed the Marshall Islands. The Japanese took control of the islands in 1915, and on April 25, 1945, the Marshalls was made a Trust Territory of the United States. The United States acknowledged the constitution of the Marshalls and the formation of their government as the Republic of the Marshall Islands on May 1, 1979. In 1986, the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands ratified a Compact of Free Association which recognized the Marshalls as a sovereign nation. The Compact expires in 2001 and is currently under re-negotiation.

The first missionaries, Dr. George Pierson and Edward Toppin Doane, came to Ebon Atoll in the western chain of the Marshall Islands in November of 1857. They were sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston. Pierson left the Marshalls in 1859. Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick arrived in 1859 and left in 1860. Doane sent his family to Hawaii in 1861, and he left in 1863. Benjamin Galen Snow arrived in 1862 and, including some extended trips to Hawaii and Kosrae, he was there until 1874. He was responsible for much of the Bible translation. Joel Whitney joined the work in the Marshalls in 1871 and was there for at least 6 years. In 1880 the training school for the Marshallese was moved to Kusaie. Dr. Edmund Pease came to the Marshalls in 1882 and was there for at least 8 years although he spend much time at the mission school in Kosrae. The mission chose to station the missionaries in Kosrae rather than in the Marshalls and have promising Marshallese sent to Kosrae for training.