ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Micronesia. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Micronesia. Citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia can change their government democratically. The constitution provides for a unicameral, 14-senator congress. The Federated States of Micronesia consists of 607 islands in the archipelago of the Caroline Islands located in the north Pacific Ocean. In 1899, Germany purchased the Carolines from Spain, and Japan seized the islands in 1915, ruling them from 1920 under a League of Nations mandate. Like several other Pacific Island countries trying to develop an offshore banking industry, Micronesia had been linked to money laundering activities and was blacklisted by the United States and Western European countries.
