For most of its 2,000 years of settlement Majuro was one atoll among 29; since 1979 it has been the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. It is a ring of 64 coral islands in the Ratak (Sunrise) Chain of the central Pacific, with just 9.7 square kilometres of land wrapped around a lagoon of 295 square kilometres. At the 2021 census Majuro held 23,156 people, about 54.6 per cent of the country’s 42,418, most of them packed into Delap, Uliga and Djarrit, three joined islets on the atoll’s eastern side known together as DUD. The highest ground, at Laura on the western tip, is less than 3 metres above the sea. Majuro’s defining feature is its lagoon, a deep, sheltered anchorage that turned a copra station into a wartime fleet base and then a national capital. Its history falls into eight clear eras.
Laura’s Earth Ovens: The First Majuro, c. 100 BC to AD 1869
People have lived on Majuro for at least 2,000 years. Excavations of um, the earth ovens still used for cooking across the Marshall Islands, at Laura village gave radiocarbon dates between 93 BC and AD 127, pointing to settlement by around the first century AD. The settlers were Austronesian ancestors of today’s Marshallese, who brought coconuts, giant swamp taro, breadfruit and chickens, and who navigated between low atolls by reading how ocean swells bent around them, a knowledge they taught with stick charts.
Laura, not the eastern islets, was the traditional centre of the atoll. Majuro was ruled like the rest of the Ratak Chain through iroij, chiefs who held rights over land, under a paramount chief, the iroijlaplap. In Marshallese the atoll is Mājro and Laura is Ļora. Laura also sits on a freshwater lens that much of the atoll’s population still relies on for water.
Missionaries and Copra Traders on Majuro, 1869–1885
Majuro’s modern era began with two kinds of outsider. In 1869 Protestant missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions set up a church and a school. By 1876 agents of Capelle & Co., Hernsheim & Co. and the trader Thomas Farrell were buying copra, the dried coconut meat pressed for oil, and after buying out Farrell in 1877 the New Zealand firm Henderson & Macfarlane made Majuro its regional headquarters.
Trade brought guns, and guns sharpened a succession dispute. The iroijlaplap Lerok had wanted his nephews Jebrik and Rimi to divide the atoll after his death, but Jebrik fought for sole control. The war of the late 1870s and 1880s killed at least ten islanders, destroyed trees and crops and caused a serious food shortage. In 1883 Cyprian Bridge of the British warship HMS Espiegle mediated a peace treaty, and when HMS Dart called in 1884 her commander had to warn the chiefs of neighbouring Aur Atoll to stay out of a new plot. Islanders kept their firearms afterwards, fearing invasion from other atolls.
Majuro Under the Jaluit Company and Germany, 1885–1914
Germany annexed the Marshall Islands as a protectorate in 1885, after petitions from German trading firms. The colonial centre was not Majuro but Jaluit, in the southern Ralik Chain, where the protection treaty was signed on 15 October 1885. The joint-stock Jaluit Company financed the administration, collected licence fees and a poll tax, and controlled about two-thirds of the copra trade, which pushed out American and British rivals; on Majuro the company set up a trading outpost. In 1906 Berlin took over direct rule and folded the Marshalls into German New Guinea. Majuro remained a copra atoll on the edge of a system run from elsewhere.
Japan’s South Seas Mandate, 1914–1944
The Imperial Japanese Navy seized the Marshalls in the autumn of 1914, soon after the First World War began, and in 1920 the League of Nations assigned them to Japan as part of the South Seas Mandate. Local affairs on Majuro were largely left to traditional leaders until the Second World War. In 1940 Japan built a seaplane base on the eastern islets, mainly on Djarrit, chosen because the lagoon suited large ships and patch reefs in the west made seaplane operations dangerous. The base was abandoned in late 1942, and the garrison withdrew to Kwajalein and Enewetak about a year before the Americans came.
Naval Base Majuro, 1944–1947
When American forces landed at the end of January 1944 during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, they found a single Japanese warrant officer left as caretaker. His capture handed the US Navy one of the largest anchorages in the Central Pacific. Seabees of the 100th Construction Battalion paved a coral runway on Delap, military headquarters went up on Uliga and Djarrit, and the three islets were joined by causeways in 1944. The Marshallese living there were forcibly relocated to Laura.
For a time the lagoon, 150 to 210 feet deep with few coral heads, was the largest and most active port in the world, until the fleet moved west and Ulithi in the Carolines took its place. The military demobilised quickly in 1945, and by 1947 only a small administrative unit was left.
Trust Territory Majuro, 1947–1979
The war decided where the capital would be. Jaluit, the German and Japanese seat, had been devastated, while Majuro had an American base, a runway and a harbour, so the US administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands made Majuro the administrative centre of the Marshalls. From 1947 Marshallese families returned to Delap and Djarrit, the Delap runway opened to civil flights, and DUD grew quickly as the commercial and administrative core, fed by high birth rates and migration from other atolls. In 1970 the airport moved west to a new site so that Delap could expand.
These decades also built a political class. A two-chamber Marshall Islands Congress, with a House of Iroij and a House of Assembly, was set up in July 1950 and made single-chamber in 1958. Elsewhere in the territory the United States carried out 67 nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak between 1946 and 1958, a legacy that still shapes relations between Majuro and Washington. The national museum took shape too: a museum committee first met on 8 February 1968, and the shared building of the Alele Museum and Public Library, named after the basket in which families kept their valuables, was completed in 1974.
A Constitution and a Capital, 1979–1986
The Marshall Islands declined to join the Federated States of Micronesia and went their own way in 1978. In May 1979 the United States recognised the new constitution and the first president, Amata Kabua, and Majuro became the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the meeting place of its legislature, the Nitijeļā. The chamber has 33 members elected for four years; Majuro, the most populous constituency, elects five of them. Four of the first five presidents elected under the 1979 constitution were traditional paramount chiefs, a sign of how the iroij carried their authority into the new state.
The Compact Capital, 1986 to Today
Full sovereignty came in 1986 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States, which provides defence and subsidies and lets Marshallese live and work in the US; the country joined the United Nations in 1991. The compact has shaped Majuro twice over. Its money underwrites the service economy, which made up 86 per cent of Majuro’s GDP in 2011, and its migration rights have drawn thousands abroad, including about 4,300 to Springdale, Arkansas, the largest Marshallese community outside the islands. Most of the compact’s financial aid was due to expire in 2023, and it was extended that year for another 20 years.
Today the lagoon earns its keep through tuna rather than warships. Majuro is one of the busiest tuna transshipment ports in the world, with 306,796 tonnes moved from purse seiners to carrier vessels in 2018, and the Marshall Islands Shipping Corporation, created in 2004, runs the government ships that link the capital with the outer islands. Daily life still runs on tight margins: the water company collects rain from a catchment on the airport runway and supplies about 53 litres per person per day, for 12 hours a day, and the 101-bed Majuro Hospital serves the atoll and much of the outer islands.
Recent years have put the capital on a regional stage. On 5 September 2013 Pacific Islands Forum leaders signed the Majuro Declaration on climate action at their 44th summit here. The Marshall Islands hosted their first Micronesian Games in Majuro from 15 to 24 June 2024, two years later than planned because of the pandemic and the building of a new stadium. Then on 26 August 2025 fire destroyed half of the parliament building, library and archives and left the rest unusable; with help offered by the United States and Taiwan, reconstruction began that October. The long-term threat is the sea. With one metre of sea-level rise parts of the atoll would be permanently flooded, and with two metres every building on Majuro would be flooded or at high risk. For the wider country, read our Marshall Islands country guide; to see how Majuro ranks among the world’s great rings of coral, see the largest atolls in the world, or compare it with another crowded atoll capital in our profile of South Tarawa.
Quick Facts About Majuro
- Country: Marshall Islands
- Continent: Oceania
- Country population: approximately 35 thousand
- Capital city status: Majuro is the capital of Marshall Islands, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Marshall Islands?
The capital of Marshall Islands is Majuro. Majuro is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Majuro in?
Majuro, the capital of Marshall Islands, is located in Oceania. As Marshall Islands's capital, Majuro serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Oceanian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Majuro the capital of Marshall Islands?
Majuro was chosen as the capital of Marshall Islands for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Majuro's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Majuro known for?
As the capital of Marshall Islands, Majuro is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Marshall Islands, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Marshall Islands Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Marshall Islands — meaning, history, and design of Marshall Islands's national flag