Marshall Islands Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (), are an island country and a United States associated state near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the International Date Line. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia. The country's population of 53,158 people (at the 2011 Census) is spread out over 29 coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The islands share maritime boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island to the north, Kiribati to the southeast, and Nauru to the south.
Human rights in the Marshall Islands Marshall Island project which was completed in 2010, aimed at enabling Marshallese women to fully participate in democratic processes and address gender imbalance at all levels of decision-making. Human rights in the Marshall Islands have been violated, particularly as a result of US nuclear testing. During the Cold War, the Marshall Islands was used as a testing site for the US's expanding nuclear arsenal. For instance, between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted at the islands. The Castle Bravo test of March 1954 is particularly poignant because it released thirty times more radioactive iodine than the 2011 Fukushima