Micronesia

 

(mīkrōnē'zhə, –shə) , one of the three main divisions of Oceania, in W Pacific Ocean, north of the equator. Micronesia includes the Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands (see Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, Gilbert Islands, and Nauru. The inhabitants are of Australoid and Polynesian stock. They speak Malayo-Polynesian languages.

Micronesia, from the Greek mikros (μικρός) (meaning small) and nesos (νῆσος) (meaning island), is a subregion of Oceania, comprising hundreds of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. The Philippines lie to the northwest, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia to the west and southwest, and Polynesia to the east.

Geography and history

This region consists of many hundreds of small islands spread over a large region of the western Pacific. The only empire known to have originated in Micronesia was based in Yap.

The term "Micronesia" was first proposed to distinguish the region in 1831 by Jules Dumont d'Urville; before this the term "Polynesia" was in use to generally describe the islands of the Pacific.

Politically, Micronesia is divided into eight nation-states and territories:

• the Federated States of Micronesia (sometimes referred to simply as "Micronesia", or abbreviated as "FSM"), which consists of four states: Kosrae, Yap, Pohnpei, and Chuuk;
• the Republic of the Marshall Islands;
• the Republic of Palau;
• the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands;
• the Republic of Nauru;
• the Republic of Kiribati;
• the Territory of Guam;
• the Territory of Wake Island.

Much of the area was to come under European domination quite early. Guam, the Northern Marianas, and the Caroline Islands (what would later become the FSM and Palau) were colonized early by the Spanish. These island territories were part of the Spanish East Indies and governed from Spanish Philippines since the early 17th century until 1898. Full European expansion did not come, however, until the early 20th century, when the area would be divided between:

• the United States, which took control of Guam following the Spanish-American War of 1898, and colonized Wake Island;
• Germany, which took Nauru and bought the Marshall, Caroline, and Northern Mariana Islands from Spain; and
• the British Empire, which took the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati).

During the First World War, Germany's Pacific island territories were taken from it and were made into League of Nations Mandates. Nauru became an Australian mandate, while Germany's other territories were given as mandates to Japan. This remained the situation until Japan's defeat in the Second World War, when its mandates became a United Nations Trusteeship ruled by the United States, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Today, all of Micronesia (with the exceptions of Guam and Wake Island, which are U.S. territories, and the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a U.S. Commonwealth) are independent states.

Languages

The native languages of the various Micronesian indigenous peoples are classified under the Austronesian language family. Almost all of these languages belong to the Oceanic subgroup of this family; however, three exceptions are noted in Western Micronesia, which belong to the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroup:

• Chamorro and Tanapag in the Mariana Islands,
• Yapese in the Federated States of Micronesia, and
• Palauan in Palau.

This latter subgroup also includes most languages spoken today in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia (Kirch, 2000: pp. 166-167).

On the eastern edge of the Federated States of Micronesia, the languages Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi represent an extreme westward extension of Polynesian.

References

• Kirch, Patrick Vinton (2000). On the Road of the Winds. An Archaeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. University of California Press, pp. 166-167. ISBN 0-520-22347-0. 

External links

• The Yap Networker - independent news media on Yap and the Micronesian region
• http://www.dankainmicronesia.com/maps.html
• Map of Micronesia
• Moon Handbooks Micronesia
• myMicronesia.com
• Yapese.com - Connecting hundereds of Micronesians around the globe
• Micronesia conservation and nature
• Micronesia Facts, Maps and flags

Countries and territories of Oceania

Australasia Australia · Christmas Island · Cocos (Keeling) Islands · New Zealand1 · Norfolk Island Melanesia Fiji · Indonesia (Maluku Islands) · New Caledonia · Papua New Guinea2 · Solomon Islands · Vanuatu Micronesia Federated States of Micronesia · Guam · Kiribati · Marshall Islands · Nauru · Northern Mariana Islands · Palau Polynesia American Samoa · Cook Islands · French Polynesia · Niue · Pitcairn · Samoa · Tokelau · Tonga · Tuvalu · Wallis and Futuna 1 Often included in Polynesia · 2 New Guinea is often included in Australasia

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See also Continents of the world

Schools

• College of Micronesia
• I Unibetsedåt Guam, The University of Guam
• http://www.dankainmicronesia.com/yap.high.school.htmlbat-smg:Mikronezėjė (salīns)

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