Mwoakilloa (or Mokil, previously named Wellington Island or Duperrey Island, after

Louis Isidore Duperrey Louis-Isidore Duperrey (21 October 1786 – 25 August 1865) was a French naval officer and explorer. Biography Early life Louis-Isidore Duperrey was born in 1786. Career He joined the navy in 1802, and served as marine hydrologist to Louis Cl ...

) is an inhabited

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...

in the central

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. Geographically, it belongs to the

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the cen ...

and is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of the outlying islands of Pohnpei State of the

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (, abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a region of Oceania. The federation encompasses the majority of the Caroline Islands (excluding Palau) and consists of four Admin ...

. Mwoakilloa lies 153 kilometres east of Pohnpei and approximately 113 kilometres northwest of

Pingelap Pingelap is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, part of Pohnpei State of the Federated States of Micronesia, consisting of three islands: Pingelap Island, Sukoru and Daekae, linked by a reef system and surrounding a central lagoon, although only Pinge ...

. The almost-rectangular atoll is 4.5 kilometres long and 2.8 kilometres broad. The atoll consists of the three islands ''Uhrek'', ''Kahlap'' (Capitol), and ''Mwandohn'', forming a central lagoon of approximately 2 square kilometres in area. Only the northeast island Kahlap is inhabited, with the town facing the lagoon. The total area of all islands is approximately 1.24 square kilometres. The population of Mwoakilloa decreased from 177 in 2000 to 147 in 2008. The inhabitants speak Mokilese — similar to the

Pohnpeian language Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with ano ...

in the family of

Micronesian languages The Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. The twenty languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonant and have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials, similar to the related Kanak languages ...

. The name "Wellington Island" comes from the vessel '' Marquis of Wellington'', whose captain named the island after his vessel. The ''Marquis of Wellington'' was on her way to China, having

transported ''Transported'' is an Australian convict melodrama film directed by W. J. Lincoln. It is considered a lost film. Plot In England, Jessie Grey is about to marry Leonard Lincoln but the evil Harold Hawk tries to force her to marry him and she ...

200 or so

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convicts ...

s to

Port Jackson Port Jackson, commonly known as Sydney Harbour, is a natural harbour on the east coast of Australia, around which Sydney was built. It consists of the waters of Sydney Harbour, Middle Harbour, North Harbour and the Lane Cove and Parramatta ...

, Australia, from Britain. The atoll is home to a local narrative of a Princess Eti, who could speak in many tongues, and communicated with the first French explorers to the island.

Transportation

Mokil Airfield is located on the southern end of Kahlap with a runway. The airfield offers no service and used by chartered flights by

Caroline Islands Air Caroline Islands Air is a charted air carrier based in the Caroline Islands. Founded in 1995 as Caroline Pacific Air and renamed in 1997. Destinations Fleet * 2 Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander –; both damaged in accidents in 2019 and 2020 * ...

References

Bibliography

Statoids.com
retrieved December 8, 2010

External links

*
Mokil in the German Colonial Lexicon
(German)

{{Authority control Atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia Islands of Pohnpei