Micronesia

A vast enclosed lagoon in Chuuk State, formerly known as Truk Lagoon, Chuuk is one of the world's great wreck-diving destinations, holding the remains of a Japanese Imperial Navy fleet destroyed by US forces in February 1944 during Operation Hailstone.

The easternmost and most isolated of the four FSM states, Kosrae is a compact volcanic island known for its pristine diving, bird-rich rainforest, and the distinctive Lelu ruins, the remains of a pre-colonial capital built directly on the reef flat.

A mysterious complex of artificial islands built on a coral reef off Pohnpei, Nan Madol is the ruins of a Tongan stone city constructed between roughly 1200 and 1500 CE, famous for its basalt-column crypts and the eerie atmosphere of a drowned civilization.

The capital of the Federated States of Micronesia, Palikir is a dispersed settlement of government buildings, homes and gardens set into a highland bowl on the island of Pohnpei, lacking the usual trappings of a capital city but carrying the full weight of national sovereignty.

The largest and most fertile island in the Federated States of Micronesia, Pohnpei is a steep volcanic cone wrapped in rainforest, ringed by mangroves and studded with waterfalls, with the national capital Palikir tucked into its interior highlands.

The island of Yap in the western FSM is world-famous for its Rai stones—large, disk-shaped limestone wheels quarried in Palau and brought to Yap centuries ago, where they function as a communal store of value and a medium of exchange that continues to operate alongside the US dollar.