| The
Marshall Islands, officially called the Republic of the Marshall Islandsis
an island country located in the northern Pacific Ocean.
The islands share maritime
boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island
to the north, Kiribati to the south-east, and Nauru to the south. The most
populous atoll is Majuro, which also acts as the
capital.
Politically, the Marshall
Islands is a presidential republic in free association with the United
States, with the US providing defense, funding grants, and access to social
services. Having few natural resources, the islands' wealth is based on
a service economy, as well as some fishing and agriculture, with a large
percentage of the islands' gross domestic product coming from United States
aid.
The country uses the United
States dollar as its currency. The majority of citizens of the Marshall
Islands are of Marshallese descent, with small numbers of immigrants from
the Philippines and other Pacific islands. The two official languages are
Marshallese, a member of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and English.
| The islands are located
north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the Federated States of Micronesia,
and south of the U.S. territory of Wake Island, to which it lays claim.
The country consists of 29
atolls and 5 isolated islands. The atolls and islands form two groups:
the Ratak Chain and the Ralik Chain (meaning "sunrise" and "sunset" chains)
In October 2011, the government
declared that an area covering nearly 2,000,000 square kilometres (772,000
sq mi) of ocean shall be reserved as a shark sanctuary. This is the world's
largest shark sanctuary, extending the worldwide ocean area in which sharks
are protected from 2,700,000 square kilometres (1,042,000 sq mi) to 4,600,000
square kilometres (1,776,000 sq mi). In protected waters all shark fishing
is banned and all by-catch must be released. |
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The climate is hot and humid,
with a wet season from May to November. The islands occasionally suffer
from typhoons. Many Pacific typhoons start in the Marshall Islands region
and grow stronger as they move west toward the Mariana Islands and the
Philippines.
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Majuro
is a large coral atoll of 64 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a
legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. The atoll
itself has a land area of 9.7 square kilometres (3.7 sq mi) and encloses
a lagoon of 295 square kilometres (114 sq mi). As with other atolls in
the Marshall Islands, Majuro consists of narrow land masses.