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The umbrella term Pacific Islands has taken on several meanings. [1] Sometimes it is used to refer only to the islands defined as lying within Oceania. [2] [3] [4] At other times, it is used to refer to the islands of the Pacific Ocean that were previously colonized by the British, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, or Japanese, or by the United States.
An enlargeable basic map of Guam. Geography of Guam. Guam is: a United States territory; Location: Northern Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere; Pacific Ocean. North Pacific Oceania. Micronesia; Time zone: Chamorro Standard Time ; Extreme points of Guam High: Mount Lamlam 406 m (1,332 ft) – 11,377 meters above Challenger Deep; Low: North ...
Guam is a U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean, at the boundary of the Philippine Sea. It is the southernmost and largest member of the Mariana Islands archipelago, which is itself the northernmost group of islands in Micronesia. The closest political entity is the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), another U.S. territory.
Although the United States gained control of Guam and the Philippines from Spain in 1898, [45] Japan controlled most of the western Pacific by 1914 and occupied many other islands during the Pacific War; however, by the end of that war, Japan was defeated and the U.S. Pacific Fleet was the virtual master of the ocean.
The U.S. has five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands in the North Pacific Ocean, and American Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean. [note 5] American Samoa is in the Southern Hemisphere, while the other four are in the Northern Hemisphere. [23]
Nauru is an oval-shaped island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, 42 km (26 mi) south of the Equator, listed as the world's smallest republic, covering just 21 km 2 (8 sq mi). [21] With 12,511 residents, it is the third least-populated country, after Vatican City and Tuvalu.
Map of the islands of the Federated States of Micronesia. List of the islands of the Federated States of Micronesia, in the central and western Caroline Islands Archipelago of the Western Pacific Ocean. The islands are within the Micronesia cultural and ecological region of Oceania. There are 607 islands and islets in the Federated States of ...
The islands are part of a geologic structure known as the Izu–Bonin–Mariana Arc system, and range in age from 5 million years old in the north to 30 million years old in the south (Guam). The island chain arose as a result of the western edge of the Pacific Plate moving westward and plunging downward below the Mariana plate, a region which ...