Namu Atoll ( Marshallese: , ) is a coral

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 ...

of 54 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 c ...

. Its total land area is only , but that encloses a lagoon of . It is located approximately south-southwest of

Kwajalein Atoll Kwajalein Atoll (; Marshallese language, Marshallese: ) is part of the Marshall Islands, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The southernmost and largest island in the atoll is named Kwajalein Island, which its majority English-speaking re ...

. There are four main population centres, the islands of Namu, Majkin, Loen and Mae. The population of Namu Atoll was 525 at the 2021 census.

History

The Spanish expedition of Álvaro de Mendaña made the first recorded sighting by Europeans of Namu Atoll on 17 September 1568. The pilot, Hernán Gallego, mistook it for ''San Bartolome'' ( Bokak Atoll), which Toribio Alonso de Salazar had seen in 1526, although Bokak was a long way to the north. Mendaña says they named them ''San Mateo Shoals''. The islands were inhabited, with many houses. A landing party found a

chisel A chisel is a hand tool with a characteristic Wedge, wedge-shaped cutting edge on the end of its blade. A chisel is useful for carving or cutting a hard material such as woodworking, wood, lapidary, stone, or metalworking, metal. Using a chi ...

made of a nail and pieces of rope which were presumably gifts left there on 3 July 1566 by the

galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and Portugal. They were first used as armed cargo carriers by Europe, Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail, and they were the principal vessels dr ...

''San Jerónimo'', then commanded by the rebel pilot Lope Martín. Captain Thomas Dennet of the British vessel ''Britannia'' sighted the atoll in 1797 on route from Australia to China and named it Ross Island. The

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

claimed Namu Atoll along with the rest of the Marshall Islands in 1885. After World War I, the island came under the

South Seas Mandate The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the " South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following W ...

of the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

. The base became part of the vast US Naval Base Marshall Islands. Following the end of World War II, it came under the control of the United States as part of the

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994. The Imperial Japanese South Seas Mandate had been seized by the U.S. during the Pacifi ...

until 1986 when the Marshall Islands achieved their independence.

Education

Marshall Islands Public School System operates public schools: * Loen Elementary School * Mae Elementary School * Majkin Elementary School * Namo Elementary School Students are zoned to Jaluit High School in Jaluit Atoll.Annual Report 2011-2012
." Ministry of Education (Marshall Islands). Retrieved on February 22, 2018. p. 54 (PDF p. 55/118). "As such, Jaluit High School enroll students from the Ralik and Iolab school zones including schools from Ebon, Namdrik, Kili, Jaluit, Ailinglaplap, Jabat, and Namu." In the 1994–1995 school year Namu had one private high school.McMurray, Christine and Roy Smith. ''Diseases of Globalization: Socioeconomic Transition and Health''.

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, October 11, 2013. , 9781134200221. p
127

References

External links

* Atolls of the Marshall Islands Ralik Chain Municipalities of the Marshall Islands {{Marshalls-geo-stub