[ 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.