[ Featured image by : Hobe / Holger Behr, Public domain, via Wikimedia Common. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Map_of_Micronesia_Oceania.png ]
( first published on year 1998 ).
- Climate:
Tropical; heavy year-round rainfall, especially in the eastern islands;
located on southern edge of the typhoon belt with occasional severe damage. - Terrain: Islands vary geologically from high mountainous islands to low, coral atolls; volcanic outcroppings on Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Truk.
- Natural resources: Forests, marine products, deep-seabed minerals.
- Weather to watch for: Subject to typhoons from June to December.
- Details: Four major island, totaling 607 islands.
- Nationality: Micronesian(s); Kosrae(s), Pohnpeian(s), Trukese, Yapese.
- Ethnic divisions: Nine ethnic Micronesian and Polynesian groups.
- Religions: Predominantly Christian, divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant; other churches include Assembly of God, Jehovah’s. Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventist, Latter-Day Saints, and the Baha’i Faith.
- Languages: English is the official and common language; most indigenous languages fall within the Austronesian language family, the exceptions are the Polynesian languages; major indigenous languages are Trukese, Pohnpeian, Yapese, and Kosrean.
