Ailinglaplap

Ailinglaplap
NASA image by Ailinglaplap
Waters	Pacific Ocean
archipelago	Marshall Islands
Geographical location	7 ° 31 '  N , 168 ° 44'  E Coordinates: 7 ° 31 '  N , 168 ° 44'  E
Number of islands	56
Main island	Bikar
Land area	14.69 km²
Lagoon area	750.29 km²
Residents	1729 (2011)
Historical map of the atoll

Ailinglaplap (German outdated: Lambert Islands ; also: Ailinglapalap ) is an atoll of the Ralik chain of the Marshall Islands . The atoll has a triangular shape, 43 km long and a maximum of 30 km wide. Australia is about 3,400 km from Ailinglaplap. The most important islands of the atoll are Airuk , Beran , Bikar , Buoj , Enewe , Ennak , Jabwan , Jeh , Kattiej , Mejajok , Mejil , Tobomaro and Woja .

history

In the language of the Micronesian inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, the name Ailinglaplap means something like Big Island .

For the Europeans, the island was discovered on December 15, 1792 by the English merchant Henry Bond .

At the end of the 19th century, like other atolls, the island was used for the production of copra . German merchants in particular planted coconut palms for this purpose . Like the rest of the Marshall Islands, the atoll officially belonged to the German Empire as a colony from 1886, but was occupied by Japan as early as 1914 and then transferred to Japan in 1919 as the so-called "League of Nations mandate". Japan cut off the Marshall Islands completely from the outside world, mainly to hide the fact that numerous military bases were being built there. In October 1940 the German auxiliary cruiser Orion and its supplier Regensburg made a brief stop in the lagoon of the atoll, but then quickly moved on to Lamotrek. In 1945 the USA also included this atoll in its so-called Pacific Islands trustee area. It was not until 1986 that the Marshall Islands, and with it Ailinglaplap, became formally independent. In the lower house of the Marshall Islands Parliament, two representatives of the atoll have a permanent mandate.

The atoll has an airfield, IATA code: AIP .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German Colonial Lexicon. Edited by Heinrich Schnee. - Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer 1920. - 3 vols.

Web links

• Image and short description (English) ( Memento of 17 September 2011 at the Internet Archive )

20110917024218 * History of the atoll