18 Facts About Kwajalein Atoll

Kwajalein Atoll has an extended oval shape running roughly WNW - ESE on the western side and then bending to run almost due south on the eastern side.

Kwajalein Atoll has a tropical rainforest climate under the Koppen climate classification.

Kwajalein Atoll is an important cultural site to the Marshallese people of the Ralik chain.

In Marshallese cosmology, Kwajalein Atoll island is the site of an abundant flowering zebra wood tree, thought to have spiritual powers.

Kwajalein Atoll came under the control of Spain but was largely ignored by European powers during the 17th and 18th centuries except for some short-lived missionary expeditions, minor trading posts and demarcation treaties between the Iberian kingdoms .

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Kwajalein Atoll was the site of a prisoner of war camp, whose detainees were not registered with the Red Cross.

Since no distinction was made between dead Japanese soldiers and Korean forced laborers in mass graves on Kwajalein Atoll, both are enshrined as war hero guardian spirits for the Japanese nation in Yasukuni Shrine.

Kwajalein Atoll was one of the few locations in the Pacific War where indigenous islanders were recorded to have been killed while fighting for the Japanese.

USS Pennsylvania was sunk in the ocean off Kwajalein Atoll after being exposed during atomic bomb testing on 10 February 1948.

The conditions in the makeshift labor camp on Kwajalein islet were such that the U S Navy administering the atoll decided to relocate these Islanders to nearby Ebeye, an islet only three islands to the north of Kwajalein and accessible by a short boat ride or walk over the reef at low tide.

Kwajalein Atoll has been leased by the United States for missile testing and other operations from well before independence for the Marshall Islands.

Since 2000, Kwajalein Atoll has become one of five preferred locations from which Pegasus rockets can be launched into equatorial orbit.

Kwajalein Atoll has one of five ground stations used in controlling the RTS range, which assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System navigation system.

The memorial on Kwajalein Atoll was constructed by the Japan Marshall Islands War-Bereaved Families Association in the 1960s, and the memorial on Roi-Namur was constructed by American personnel.

The Kwajalein Atoll designation includes only the historical 1944 shape of the island, which has been enlarged since then by dredging and fill.

Effectively, this rendered the land negotiations for use of Kwajalein Atoll a "domestic issue" between the national Marshallese government in Majuro and local "landowners, " even though Kwajalein, where the local Marshallese population deals on a daily basis with American military activity, is a considerable distance from Majuro.

Many Kwajalein Atoll residents have complained in the past that Majuro is out of touch with the realities of Kwajalein Marshallese, and downplays their suffering while profiting from the income provided by the testing site.

Kwajalein Atoll is a setting in Neal Shusterman's young adult book series, "Arc of a Scythe".