Walung was the smallest of the original five

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of the state of

Kosrae Kosrae ( ), formerly known as Kusaie or Strong's Island, is an island in the Caroline Islands archipelago, and States of Micronesia, state within the Federated States of Micronesia. It includes the main island of Kosrae, traditionally known as Ual ...

Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia (, abbreviated FSM), or simply Micronesia, is an island country in Micronesia, a region of Oceania. The federation encompasses the majority of the Caroline Islands (excluding Palau) and consists of four Admin ...

. Since the 1980s, it has been part of the municipality of

Tafunsak Tafunsak (formerly transliterated as Tahfuhnsahk) is the largest settlement on the island of Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia. Its population was 2,457 at the 2000 census. This includes Walung, Kosrae, Walung, which had been incorpora ...

Geography

Walung is located at the Southwest point of the island, northwest of Utwa and southwest of

village. Most of its western edge is

coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

line. Walung does not reach far towards the center of Kosrae. The

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

of Walung was Walung Village. With a population of only 151 at the census of 1980 (out of 5,491 for the state of Kosrae), Walung was by far the smallest of the five municipalities.

Utwe Utwe (or Utwa) is the second-largest municipality in the Micronesian state of Kosrae, the largest being Tafunsak. Geography Utwe occupies the very South of the island, but has no coast on its East border. In 1994 the total population of Utwe ...

, the second smallest, had a population of 912. The area of the municipality was about 19.5 km².

Utwa-Walung Marine Park

Walung and Utwa are home to the Utwa-Walung Marine Park, a conservation area established by Madison Nena, a local ecologist who has won several awards, including the Seacology Prize in 1999. In the late 1990s, Madison Nena successfully led a campaign to prevent property developers from building a tourist complex without adequate sewage facilities, and in its place he founded an eco-tourism initiative at Kosrae Village Resort. He has also worked with island elders to revitalize historic methods of Kosraean house construction. The park features excellent examples of healthy hard

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

, as well as some of Micronesia's most pristine

forests A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological functio ...

and extensive

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

ecosystems. The park's main office is close to the

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. It results from the event of ''shipwrecking'', which may be intentional or unintentional. There were approximately thre ...

site of the infamous pirate trader

Bully Hayes William Henry "Bully" Hayes (1827 or 1829 – 31 March 1877) was a notorious American ship's captain who engaged in blackbirding in the 1860s and 1870s.James A. Michener & A. Grove Day, ''Bully Hayes, South Sea Buccaneer'', in ''Rascals in Parad ...

, and it is rumored that Hayes buried some treasure somewhere in the forest.

Education

Kosrae State Department of Education operates Walung Elementary School. High school students attend Kosrae High School in

Tofol Tofol village in Lelu Town municipality is the seat of government of the States of the Federated States of Micronesia, state of Kosrae in Federated States of Micronesia, Micronesia, according to the provisions of the Kosrae State Code, Title 2, C ...

, Lelu municipality.Schools
" Kosrae State Department of Education. Retrieved on February 23, 2018.

References

Maps

General Soil Map of Kosrae produced by the US Department of Agriculture
Municipalities of Kosrae {{Micronesia-geo-stub

Geography

Utwa-Walung Marine Park

Education

See also

References

Maps