The Marshall Islands is an island nation in the western Pacific Ocean. The islands' official name is the Republic of the Marshall Islands and they form part of the Micronesia Islands. Since 1990, the Marshall Islands have been in free association with the United States without whose subsidies and delivery of foodstuffs the islands would barely be able to survive. The Marshall islands are hardly developed for tourism and seldom visited.
The Marshall Islands consist of two almost parallel chains of atolls and islands. The Ratak (sunrise) chain is in the east and consists of 15 atolls. The Ralik (sunset) chain of islands are in the west, consisting of 16 atolls and islands. The two chains comprise 1152 islands and islets, extending over an area of 1.9 million km² in the central Pacific. The islands and atolls are only just 2 metres above sea level. Majuro, Darrit, Uliga, Delap and Ebeye are the only inhabited islands of the archipelago.
Tropical climate with cooling north-easterly trade winds from December to March.
Majuro International Airport is near the capital city of the Marshall islands. The national airline, Air Marshall Islands operates scheduled and charter flights between many atolls belonging to the Marshall Islands and Honolulu/Hawaii and Fiji (Kiribati and Tuvalu).
Majuro is the capital of the Marshall Islands and is located on the atoll of the same name. The city has a number of attractions including an exhibition in the Alele museum on traditional Marshall Island culture.
The Marshall Islands have so far been largely neglected by tourism which can be attributed to their former use as an atomic bomb test site in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Probably the most famous atoll "Bikini" was announced to be safe after extensive testing several years ago. The radioactive level was claimed to be below dangerous levels for people. On the atoll, a fantastic, exciting underwater world awaits divers and there are lagoons, pristine reefs and wrecks for exceptional diving adventures.