Ujelang Atoll

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Ujelang Atoll is an atoll of 30 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The largest island is also called Ujelang. Eimnlapp, Kalo and Daisu are much smaller. It is a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only 0.67 miles², but that encloses a lagoon of 25.47 miles².

Ujelang Atol is uninhabited since some years after 1980. It was the private property of German trading companies since 1880, who maintained copra-plantations on the largest island, also called Ujelang. In 1935 there were only some 40 inhabitants left. The island became the relocation island for the people of Eniwetok Atoll in 1947 (due to atomic tests on that island from 1948-1958). The population on Ujelang grew from 145 in 1947 to 342 in 1973, despite near-famine and epidemics, especially in the fifties, due to the scarce supply of fish and vegetables. After the clean-up of Eniwetok all inhabitants returned to that island in 1980. A hundred or so soon returned back to Ujelang because Eniwetok could not support them, but their stay on Ujelang was short-lived. In 1989 Ujelang was uninhabited. It is now very rarely visited and has only the former headquarters of the German copra-company on the main island as a reminder to the past.