The capital of the Federated States of Micronesia is Palikir, a small purpose-built government town in the forested hills of northwest Pohnpei, the country’s largest island, about 8 kilometres southwest of the port town of Kolonia. It was declared the capital in 1989, replacing Kolonia, and commonly cited figures give it only about 4,600 residents, a sliver of the roughly 36,800 people on Pohnpei. What defines Palikir is that it is almost entirely a seat of government, with the national Congress, the president’s offices and residence, ministries and the main college campus set around lawns and palms, and very little else. Every visitor reaches it the same way, through Kolonia, so the best way to understand the capital is to walk the route: from the airport causeway, through Kolonia’s colonial layers, past the cliffs of Sokehs, and up the road to the capitol.
Deketik Causeway and Kolonia’s Harbour: Where Every Visit Starts
Pohnpei International Airport sits on Deketik, a small island joined to Kolonia by a causeway, so the first stretch of any trip to Palikir is a drive or walk across open water with the town ahead. Pohnpei itself is a high volcanic island of 334 square kilometres, the largest in the country, ringed by a fringing coral reef. The name, from the Pohnpeian language, means “upon a stone altar”. The island rises steeply from the coast, and its interior is among the wettest places on Earth, with more than 7,600 millimetres of rain a year recorded on some mountain slopes.
Kolonia is the island’s largest settlement and its commercial hub: 6,074 people at the 2010 census on just 1.5 square kilometres, with many more buildings just outside the town limits. It has been a separate municipality since May 1965, carved out of Nett. It is also where most of the foreign presence still lives. Although the national government moved to Palikir more than three decades ago, the United States, Australia, China and Japan keep their embassies in Kolonia, alongside volunteer groups from the Peace Corps to Japan’s JICA volunteers.
Kolonia’s Spanish Wall, German Bell Tower and Kaselelhie Street
Walk into the centre and the town reads like a stack of colonial eras. Before the colonisers, this stretch of shore was called Mesenieng, “face of the wind”, and Pohnpei’s traditional centre of power lay far to the southeast in Madolenihmw, near the stone city of Nan Madol, begun in the 8th or 9th century and made a national historic site in 1985. Spain founded the town in 1887 as Santiago de la Ascensión, an administrative and military post, and built a fort to protect the garrison. Its ruin, the Spanish Wall, dating from 1887, is the oldest of the town’s colonial sights.
Germany bought Pohnpei from Spain in 1899, with the rest of the Caroline Islands, after the Spanish–American War. The Germans built roads, wharves and district offices, but few settlers came, and a typhoon devastated Kolonia and northern Pohnpei in 1905. Their marks on the walk are a Catholic bell tower of 1909 and a cemetery founded in 1910. Japan took the island in the first weeks of the First World War and, unlike earlier rulers, brought thousands of settlers, mostly from Okinawa. The Japanese shrine dates from 1921. Visitors in the 1930s said you could walk the length of Namiki Street, now Kaselelhie Street, the main road through town, under shopkeepers’ canopies without getting wet. That town largely disappeared in the Second World War, when about 118 tons of American bombs, 600 incendiaries and naval shelling hit Kolonia and the island’s installations, though Pohnpei itself was never invaded. The town was rebuilt and expanded under the US Navy and then the US Department of the Interior, and today all its main streets are paved and signposted.
Sokehs Peninsula and the Rebellion of 1910
Heading west out of Kolonia, the skyline is dominated by Sokehs Rock, the sheer cliff face on Deke Sokehs, a mountainous peninsula that was once an island. It is now joined to Pohnpei by a causeway and a field of mangroves, cut by the 1,570-metre Dau Mwoakote Channel. Palikir lies within Sokehs municipality, which also takes in Pakin Atoll some 30 kilometres offshore, so the walk from here on is through the capital’s own district.
The peninsula carries the most important political memory on the route. German land reforms from 1907 required new landowners to give 15 days of labour a year to public works. On 17 October 1910 a Sokehs work gang on the island refused orders after one of them was flogged, and the next morning, when the district commissioner Gustav Boeder rowed across to negotiate, he was shot dead. The rebels killed three more German officials and five oarsmen from the Mortlock Islands. On 13 January 1911 the cruisers Emden and Nürnberg shelled the rebel stronghold, and after weeks of guerrilla fighting the leader, Samuel, surrendered on 13 February. Fifteen rebels were executed by firing squad on 24 February 1911, and the colonial government banished the whole tribe of 426 Sokehs to Palau. Japan began bringing them home in 1917 and finished in 1927.
The independent country rewrote the story. In the late 1980s, the same years Palikir was being built, the government of the Federated States of Micronesia made Samuel a national hero. The anniversary of the execution, 24 February, is a public holiday, and the mass grave of the fifteen men, back in Kolonia, is a national shrine.
Palikir’s Capitol Complex: A Capital Built in 1989
Palikir itself lies about 8 kilometres southwest of Kolonia, surrounded by heavily wooded forest. Until the late 1980s it was a tiny village of little consequence. The country it now governs came together in stages: four districts of the US-administered Trust Territory ratified a constitution on 10 May 1979, the Compact of Free Association with the United States took effect on 3 November 1986, and the United Nations formally ended the trusteeship in 1990. Pohnpei itself was still spelled Ponape until November 1984.
Rather than keep the government in Pohnpei State’s own capital, the federation built a new town. It was declared the capital in 1989, and US$15 million in American aid paid for the complex: all the national government offices, some housing and the residence of the president. The buildings are low, with steep pitched roofs, broad eaves and verandas, grouped around parking areas and planted lawns with the forest pressing in behind.
The Congress that meets here is small: 14 members, one elected from each of the four states for four years and ten from single-member districts for two, and the president and vice-president are chosen from among the four state senators. The four states, Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae, are the four white stars on the national flag. Chuukese make up 48.8 per cent of the population and Pohnpeians 24.2 per cent, and the largest city, Weno in the Chuuk Lagoon, is not the capital at all.
Much of what happens in these offices is the management of American money. The Compact makes the United States responsible for defence, lets Micronesians live and work in the US, and funds economic and technical aid: Washington pledged $1.3 billion to the islands between 1986 and 2001, and the amended compact of 2004 committed further development aid through 2023. English is the working language of the ministries, while outside the four state capitals people mostly speak their own island languages, Pohnpeian among them. Religion follows the same island-by-island pattern: Pohnpei’s people are split roughly evenly between Protestants and Catholics, while Kosrae is about 95 per cent Protestant and the country as a whole is about 55 per cent Catholic, a legacy of Spanish and then German missions.
College of Micronesia and the Rain Over Palikir
The last stop on the walk is the national campus of the College of Micronesia–FSM, the country’s public community college, which became the national college of the federation on 1 April 1993. The college began in 1963 as the Micronesian Teacher Education Center, run for the Trust Territory by the University of Hawaii, and today has a campus in each of the other three states as well as a fisheries and maritime institute in Yap. Palikir Elementary School serves local children, while older students from Sokehs travel back to Bailey Olter High School in Kolonia.
Look up from the campus and you see why Palikir is so green. About 9 kilometres to the southeast rises Mount Nanlaud, at 782 metres the highest point on Pohnpei and in the whole country. The mountains wring moisture from the trade winds, and the climate is tropical rainforest, averaging about 27°C every day of the year. Modelled climate data put Palikir’s rainfall at about 5,200 millimetres a year, with no dry month at all.
By the end of the walk the capital’s character is plain: a quiet administrative campus in the rain forest, deliberately set apart from the embassies, shops and colonial ruins of Kolonia, and from the rival islands whose stars share the flag. For the whole four-state federation, from Yap to Kosrae, read our Micronesia country guide, see what those four stars mean in the flag of Micronesia, or cross to the atoll capital of the neighbouring republic that chose not to join the federation in our profile of Majuro.
Quick Facts About Palikir
- Country: Micronesia
- Continent: Oceania
- Country population: approximately 114 thousand
- Capital city status: Palikir is the capital of Micronesia, 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 Micronesia?
The capital of Micronesia is Palikir. Palikir 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 Palikir in?
Palikir, the capital of Micronesia, is located in Oceania. As Micronesia's capital, Palikir serves as the country's primary connection to the broader Oceanian political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Palikir the capital of Micronesia?
Palikir was chosen as the capital of Micronesia 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 Palikir's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Palikir known for?
As the capital of Micronesia, Palikir 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 Micronesia, 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
- Micronesia Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Micronesia — meaning, history, and design of Micronesia's national flag