Koror City

Koror City is the place that Palau actually happens in, even though the official capital moved to Ngerulmud on Babeldaob in 2006. The national government buildings are in Ngerulmud — a handful of concrete structures in the interior hills — but the embassies, airlines offices, hospitals, banks, restaurants and hotels remain in Koror, and almost every visitor's first and last experience of Palau is this coral island town connected to Babeldaob by the KB Bridge. The scale is modest: the main street runs perhaps two kilometres from the bridge approach to the waterfront, and most of the rest of the town is residential neighbourhood that spills toward the water in low-rise coral-block houses and the occasional Japanese-era concrete building from the 1930s and 40s.

The KB Bridge itself — KB for Koror-Babeldaob — is an unlikely piece of infrastructure for a country of 18,000 people. It was built in 2002 as the longest cable-stayed bridge in the Pacific at the time, funded under the Compact of Free Association with the United States, and it opened up Babeldaob to car traffic for the first time, dramatically changing the relationship between Koror and the larger island that surrounds it. The bridge is a landmark visible from much of the town and makes an unlikely but genuine impression against the tropical skyline — white cables against blue sky, Palau's Compact Road beginning its circle of Babeldaob.

The food scene is the unexpected highlight of Koror for visitors who extend their stay. Palauan cuisine is rooted in coconut, taro, fish and breadfruit, but Japanese influence — Palau was under Japanese administration from 1885 to 1945 — remains strong in the local food culture, particularly in the fish markets and sashimi-quality restaurants that line the waterfront. Several restaurants in the town centre have developed a fusion cuisine that combines Palauan ingredients with Japanese, Korean and Chinese techniques, and the quality of the fresh fish — caught daily by Palauan fishermen — is consistently excellent. Koror's restaurants are one of the few reasons to spend unstructured time in the town beyond using it as a transport hub.

As a visitor base, Koror is straightforward and functional. Most dive shops, tour operators and boat services are within walking distance of the main hotel cluster near the bridge approach, and the town is small enough to navigate on foot or by taxi for longer trips. The fish market near the waterfront is worth a morning visit for the quality of the produce on display and the photographic opportunity. For most visitors Palau is a day-trip country — you go to the Rock Islands, to Jellyfish Lake, to Peleliu — and Koror is the logistics platform that makes those trips possible, not a destination in its own right. But the town rewards those who give it a day of unhurried attention.

Koror is the practical centre of Palau — almost all visitor services, dive shops, boat operators, restaurants and hotels are located here, making it the necessary base for exploring the rest of the country.

The KB Bridge (Koror-Babeldaob Bridge) is a notable piece of infrastructure for a small Pacific nation, and crossing it on foot or by bicycle offers views of Nikko Bay and the Rock Islands beyond.

Koror's fish market and waterfront restaurants offer excellent fresh Palauan and Japanese-influenced seafood, and the quality of daily-caught fish is consistently high.