Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Palau, [a] officially the Republic of Palau, [b] [8] is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean.The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands, while the eastern and central parts make up the Federated States of Micronesia.
Republic of Palau. Palau was initially settled around 1000 BC.. Palau was likely sighted for the first time by Europeans as early as 1522, when the Spanish mission of the Trinidad, the flagship of Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, sighted two small islands around the 5th parallel north, naming them "San Juan" without visiting them.
The Palau archipelago contains more than 250 islands and islets stretched along a 150 km north south trending arc in the western Pacific. Its center is located near 7° north latitude, some 650 km north of Jayapura on the island of New Guinea, and near 134° east latitude, some 900 km east of Mindanao, Philippines.
Palau is divided into sixteen administrative regions, called states. Palau has a high ratio of government offices to citizens, with 16 states and both a tribal chiefdom and elected legislature in each state, for 20,000 people.
Ngerulmud is the only settlement in Palau to have its own ZIP code (96939), with the rest of the country using 96940 – the United States Postal Service services Palau as part of the Compact of Free Association with the United States. [11] In July 2014, Ngerulmud hosted the official opening of the 45th Pacific Islands Forum.
For information on the wildlife of Palau, see: List of birds of Palau; List of mammals of Palau; Fish.
The politics of Palau take place in a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Palau is both head of state and head of government.Palau currently has no political parties and is a de facto non-partisan democracy although there is no law preventing the formation of political parties.
Demographic features of the population of Palau include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects. About 70% of the Palauan population lives in the city of Koror on Koror Island .