Pacific Islands, Trust Territory of the

Pacific Islands, Trust Territory of the, former United States-administered strategic trust territory in the western Pacific, including all the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall islands except Guam. In 1922 the League of Nations mandated the islands to Japan. During World War II the United States occupied the islands, and in 1947 the United Nations authorized US trusteeship. The territory had an appointed governor and a territorial congress. In the late 1970s four separate and internally self-governing districts were formed: the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas; the Federated States of Micronesia—Kosrae, Ponape (now Pohnpei), Truk, and Yap; the Republic of the Marshall Islands; and the Republic of Palau (Belau). During the 1980s the Northern Marianas became a US Commonwealth, and its residents US citizens. Both Micronesia and the Marshalls approved Compacts of Free Association with the United States, providing for full self-government except for defence, which they delegated to the United States. In Palau, however, repeated efforts to approve such a compact and to amend the islands' constitution to allow port calls by nuclear-armed ships failed to meet local legal requirements. In 1986 the United States notified the United Nations that it had fulfilled its obligation and was ending the trusteeship. After the Security Council gave its approval in 1990, only Palau retained its status as a trust territory; it became an independent state in October 1994.