Map - Peleliu (State of Peleliu)

Peleliu (State of Peleliu)
Peleliu (or Beliliou) is an island in the island nation of Palau. Peleliu, along with two small islands to its northeast, forms one of the sixteen states of Palau. The island is notable as the location of the Battle of Peleliu in World War II.

Beliliou was traditionally divided into five villages. Teliu is located on the southwest coast bordered on the north by Ngerkeiukl on the west coast, Ngesias in the central portion of the island, and Ngerdelolk on the east coast. Ngerchol occupies the northern part of the island on the west side of Bloody Nose Ridge. Most of the surface remains of the traditional villages have been obliterated. However, the locations of the villages and the locations of features within the villages, including odesongel, are known and preserved in the oral tradition. These traditional features are important symbols giving identity to families, clans and regions.

The lagoon and adjacent rock islands are important resource areas, and probably were intensively exploited prehistorically. Important resources include many different species of trees and other plants and many different species of fish and shellfish. On the islands, traditional gardens would have been located in areas where sufficient soil had accumulated in low lying pockets and marshes.

First sighting of Peleliu, Babeldaob, and Koror recorded by Westerners was by the Spanish expedition of Ruy López de Villalobos at the end of January 1543. They were then charted as Los Arrecifes ("The Reefs" in Spanish). In November and December 1710 these three islands were again visited and explored by the Spanish missionary expedition commanded by Sargento Mayor Francisco Padilla on board of the patache Santísima Trinidad. Two years later they were explored in detail by the expedition of Spanish naval officer Bernardo de Egoy. Following its defeat in the Spanish–American War, Spain sold Palau (including Peleliu) to Germany in 1899. Control passed to Japan in 1914.

During World War II, the Battle of Peleliu was a major battle between units of the United States Marine Corps and United States Army against the Imperial Japanese Army in 1944. The battle for the island was particularly brutal because by this time the Japanese military had evolved island defense tactics with strong fortifications in the island's caves and rock formations within the Umurbrogol Mountains (Bloody Nose Ridge), which enabled a defense in depth which maximized casualties on the attacking force. On both sides involved in the fighting there were high losses with more than 2,000 Americans and 10,000 Japanese killed, but, remarkably, there were no casualties among the local civilians because they were evacuated from the fighting to other islands of Palau.

The ruins of many of the military installations of the era, such as the airstrip, are still intact, and shipwrecks from the battle remain visible underwater just off the coast. There are war memorials on the island to both the American and the Japanese dead. Peleliu and Angaur were the only islands in the Palau archipelago to be occupied by the Americans during the war. The capital of Koror remained in Japanese hands to the end of the war.

Peleliu was formally placed under the control of the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Palau became independent in 1978, and Peleliu was organized as a state within the new republic. In August 2014, Peleliu hosted the "leader's retreat" at the 45th Pacific Islands Forum, featuring representatives from the forum's 15 member states.

 
Map - Peleliu (State of Peleliu)
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Country - Palau
Flag of Palau
Palau, officially the Republic of Palau and historically Belau, Palaos or Pelew, is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The republic consists of approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Caroline Islands with parts of the Federated States of Micronesia. It has a total area of 466 km2. The most populous island is Koror, home to the country's most populous city of the same name. The capital Ngerulmud is located on the nearby island of Babeldaob, in Melekeok State. Palau shares maritime boundaries with international waters to the north, the Federated States of Micronesia to the east, Indonesia to the south, and the Philippines to the northwest.

The country was originally settled approximately 3,000 years ago by migrants from Maritime Southeast Asia. Palau was first drawn on a European map by the German missionary Paul Klein based on a description given by a group of Palauans shipwrecked on the Philippine coast on Samar. Palau islands were made part of the Spanish East Indies in 1885. Following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands were sold to Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty, where they were administered as part of German New Guinea. After World War I, the islands were made a part of the Japanese-ruled South Seas Mandate by the League of Nations. During World War II, skirmishes, including the major Battle of Peleliu, were fought between American and Japanese troops as part of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, Palau was made a part of the United States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1947. Having voted in a referendum against joining the Federated States of Micronesia in 1978, the islands gained full sovereignty in 1994 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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