The Southwest Islands 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 nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the ...

are several small islands spread across the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

about 600 km from the main island chain of Palau. They make up the Palauan states of

Sonsorol Sonsorol is one of the sixteen states of Palau. The inhabitants speak Sonsorolese, a local Chuukic language, and Palauan. The islands of the state of Sonsorol, together with the islands of Hatohobei, form the Southwest Islands of Palau. Hi ...

and

Hatohobei Tobi, or Hatohobei ( Tobian), is the southernmost of Palau's sixteen states, consisting of Tobi Island and Helen Reef. The total land area is about 0.88 km². The population was 25 in 2015. Tobian, English, and Sonsorolese are the offici ...

. The nearshore islands to the southwest of the main island of Palau (

Babeldaob Babeldaob (also Babelthuap) is the largest island in the island nation of the Republic of Palau. It is in the western Caroline Islands, and the second largest island (after Guam) in the Micronesia region of Oceania. Palau's capital, Ngerulmud, i ...

), which belong to the states of Koror,

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. H ...

and

Angaur , or in Palauan, is an island and state in the island nation of Palau. History Angaur was traditionally divided among some eight clans. Traditional features within clan areas represent important symbols giving identity to families, clans an ...

and the

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

Rock Islands, are not considered part of the Southwest Islands.

Geography

The Southwest Islands are located some 275 to 325 km southwest of

. These small outer islands, which include

, Pulu Ana, and Meriir, are both physically and culturally distinct from the rest of the Palau. The islands are miniature platforms of raised reef composed of coralline limestone. The islands have sandy soils covered with atoll-like forest and brush. The islands are low, and have depressed, swampy interiors. Large stands of coconut palms line the beaches forming the primary resource for the only industry on the islands:

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from co ...

production. Today, the islands are largely uninhabited as most of the native population lives in Koror or on

Ngerekebesang Island Ngerekebesang Island (alternative names: Ngerekebesang Hamlet, Arakabesan) is an island in the state of Koror, Palau, where the office of the President of the Republic of Palau was located before the capital was moved to the state of Melekeok. It i ...

. Even so, the natives retain a strong sense of cultural pride in their heritage and a firm commitment to their islands. The Southwest Islands, grouped by their state, from north to south, are: *

Fana Fana is a borough of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. The borough makes up the southeastern part of the municipality of Bergen. The borough was once part of the historic municipality of Fana which was incorporated into Bergen ...

(''Fanna'') **Sonsorol ('' Dongosaru'') **Pulo Anna (''Puro'') ** Merir (''Melieli'') *

** Tobi Island (''Hatohobei'') **Helen Reef (''Hotsarihie'') **Transit Reef (''Pieraurou'')

Traditional villages

There is little information available on traditional village patterns in the Southwest Islands. Osborne noted several individual old dwelling places and one concentration of platforms and pathways. There is some information available on traditional fishing practices. The surrounding ocean provided the primary source of protein and was probably intensely exploited prehistorically. Given the limited amount of land, it is expected that almost all of it would have been intensively exploited by settlement or subsistence activities.

Culture

The people of the Southwest Islands and Tochobei (

Tobi ToBI (; an abbreviation of tones and break indices) is a set of conventions for transcribing and annotating the prosody of speech. The term "ToBI" is sometimes used to refer to the conventions used for describing American English specifically, whic ...

) share a cultural heritage that shows close ties with peoples of the central

Caroline Islands The Caroline Islands (or the Carolines) are a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands in the western Pacific Ocean, to the north of New Guinea. Politically, they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in the ce ...

, more than 1000 km to the northeast and on the other side of Palau. The migration of these people to the Southwest Islands must be one of the truly remarkable events in the prehistory of the Pacific.

References

{{authority control Islands of Palau Sonsorol Hatohobei