Palau, officially Republic of Palau, is an island country, one of the four that form Micronesia and one of the fourteen that make up Oceania. Its capital is Ngerulmud and its most populated city is Koror. It is composed of about three hundred and forty islands of volcanic and coral origin in the Philippine Sea. Located in the southwestern tip of Micronesia, it borders on the northeast with Northern Mariana Islands, on the east with Federated States of Micronesia, on the south with Indonesia and on the west with the Philippines. Form, together with the Federated States of Micronesia, the archipelago of the Caroline Islands. Among the colonial powers that controlled or occupied the archipelago include the Spanish, German, Japanese and the United States.
It became independent from the United States in 1994 and is one of the most recent and least populated countries in the world, with around 20,000 inhabitants.