Oceanic Republics

The small sovereign island republics of the Pacific Ocean: Nauru, Kiribati, Fiji, Vanuatu, Palau, Samoa, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, none large enough individually to need its own separate group and none fitting the neighboring East Asian and Pacific Republics group, whose members sit on or near the Asian mainland rather than out in the open Pacific. Most gained independence only in the second half of the twentieth century, several from earlier United Nations trusteeship administered by the United States or Australia, and most hold a seat at the United Nations today despite populations that in several cases number only in the tens of thousands.