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.
History of the Marshall Islands gave notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations, but continued to manage the islands, and in the late 1930s began building air bases on several atolls. The Marshall Islands were in an important geographic position, being the easternmost point in Japan's defensive ring at the beginning of World War II. In the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein Atoll was the administrative center of the Japanese 6th Fleet Forces Service, whose task was the defense of the Marshall Islands. In World War II, the United States, during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, invaded and occupied the