In these times of debate about tourism saturation, we propose an idea for lovers of extravagant experiences. The Republic of Palau is an island country in Oceania, made up of nearly three and a half hundred volcanic and coral islands located in the Philippine Sea. Together with the Federated States of Micronesia, it forms part of the Caroline Islands archipelago.

One of its peculiarities is that it has the only capital in the world without a population: no one lives in Ngerulmud, as it is called, since it is merely a cluster of administrative buildings.

The country’s original name in the Malayo-Polynesian language is Belau, though it’s unclear if it derives from the word beluu (“village”) or aibebelau (a term alluding to the creation myth). Palau was the form adopted by the Spanish when the islands were sighted by the ship Trinidad, captained by Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa, during its return to Spain following the Magellan expedition (completed by Elcano as the first circumnavigation of the globe). This was in 1522, and the islands were christened San Juan. Twenty-one years later, Ruy López de Villalobos arrived, and in 1574, during the reign of Philip II, they were incorporated into the Captaincy General of the Philippines.

Ngerulmud Palau
Location of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. Credit: GabrielZafra / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

The Spanish never truly colonized the area, with only a handful of missionaries setting foot there. Thus, in 1885, the German Empire occupied some sparsely populated islands, sparking a dispute with Spain. This was resolved through the intervention of Pope Leo XIII, who ruled in favor of Spain in exchange for trade concessions, averting war. However, war came thirteen years later with the U.S., and although it initially seemed the archipelago would remain unaffected, the government in Madrid preemptively sold the Carolines to the Germans for twenty-five million pesetas ($154707 US dollars).

The Germans lost them in World War I, and the islands became Japanese territory. Japan expanded the German mining economy with a new focus on fishing and copra (dried coconut) trade, though it practically replaced the native population with Japanese and Korean immigrants. During the Second World War, there was yet another change in control: the U.S., having conquered the territory, obtained a UN mandate to administer it in trust. This led to 1978, when a referendum resulted in a vote for independence, officially declared in 1994.

During this period, initiatives were launched to equip the new republic with the necessary institutions. The first was the 1981 promulgation of a constitution; the second was establishing a permanent and definitive capital to replace the provisional one, Koror, the most populated city in Palau on the island of the same name. However, Koror had seen its population drastically decrease following the departure of most Japanese residents in 1945 and the decline of economic activity after the Americans established their military base in Guam, in the Marianas.

Ngerulmud capital Palau
Map of the Republic of Palau. Credit: TUBS / Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

The young constitution mandated that the capital be located on the largest island, Babeldaob, where the previous capital had been, and that it be completed within a decade. However, construction, awarded in 1986 to the same Hawaiian company that designed the capitol in Palikir, Pohnpei, for the Federated States of Micronesia, didn’t begin until the early 2000s due to a lack of building materials and architects and engineers to oversee the project.

A twenty-million-dollar loan granted by Taiwan, as part of its foreign diplomacy policy to gain recognition as a country independent of China, enabled the construction of three government buildings around a central plaza: the Kelulau (Palau National Congress, a replica of the U.S. Capitol), the executive headquarters, and a courthouse (though the Supreme Court remained in Koror). The budget spiraled, eventually reaching forty-five million dollars, but in 2006, the administrative complex was finally inaugurated.

It was named Ngerulmud, referencing a nearby hill where, according to local tradition, women gathered to offer mud to the gods; mud referred to a type of fish, the pygmy angelfish (Centropyge tibicen), endemic to the Indo-Pacific region. Thus, the name of the capital can be translated as place of the fermented angelfish. This recalls the importance that fishing came to hold in the archipelago, a legacy from the Japanese, though recently it has been overshadowed by diving tourism.

Ngerulmud capital Palau
View of the complex built in Ngerulmud. Credit: Abasaa / Public Domain / Wikipedia

Approximately five thousand people attended the inauguration, which represents practically the entire population of the island. However, these people chose to keep their residence in Koror, as it is only thirty-three kilometers away, meaning that the only ones who moved were government officials. Even so, they do not live in Ngerulmud itself—there are no houses, only offices—but in Melekeok, a small coastal village located a couple of kilometers away, which barely surpassed fifty residents in the 2010 census.

Melekeok is the capital of the state of the same name, one of the sixteen states that make up Palau (ten of which are on Babeldaob). The national census conducted there in 2020 recorded a slightly higher number of residents than in the city: three hundred and eighteen. Since many of them, as noted, are government officials working in Ngerulmud, the latter is confirmed as the least populated national capital in the world, with zero residents.

Only Plymouth equals it, which was the capital of Montserrat (a British island in the Lesser Antilles) until it was abandoned after being destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1995.

Ngerulmud capital Palau
Location of Ngerulmud within the state of Melekeok. Credit: Aotearoa / Wikimedia Commons

Nowadays, Ngerulmud’s status as the capital is a source of controversy. The outcome is considered significantly flawed, as the construction used materials unsuitable for the tropical climate (an annual average of twenty-seven degrees, abundant rainfall year-round, and high humidity), and the ventilation system installed was defective, leading to a mold infestation in the Kelalu that temporarily forced politicians to relocate the facilities. But that was only part of the problems.

The high cost—doubling the initial budget, as we saw—left the country in debt, and in 2013 the government undertook a series of measures to reduce maintenance expenses, starting with closing the Ngerulmud post office, which incurred annual losses of twenty-eight thousand dollars. Consequently, the only remaining post office is in Koror.

However, it is worth noting that the capital is the only place in Palau with its own postal code—the rest of the republic uses a different one—and that the postal service is not native but operated by the United States Postal Service.

Ngerulmud capital Palau
The Kelalu, or National Congress of Palau, whose architecture is inspired by the Capitol in Washington, was designed by Joseph Farrell. Credit: Lukas / Wikipedia

This arrangement is due to the fact that both countries signed a COFA (Compact of Free Association), a treaty that guarantees U.S. financial aid in exchange for full authority over defense and international responsibilities. This agreement also extends to the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Additionally, it includes U.S. representation on the International Board of the International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, duty-free imports, and the right for Palauan citizens to move freely (including work and residency permits) in the U.S. and vice versa, although they cannot access Medicaid (the U.S. health program for eligible individuals and families with low income and resources).

In summary, Ngerulmud has no residents, and the closest thing to that are the aforementioned officials and politicians, namely a president, a vice president, seven ministers, sixteen congressmen, and thirteen senators. The ratio relative to the population is quite unbalanced, and, in fact, in some states of Palau, there are almost more politicians than citizens.


This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on January 17, 2025: Ngerulmud, la única capital del mundo sin habitantes

SOURCES

Megaconstrucciones, Ngerulmul

US Department of State, U.S. Relations With Palau

Jolie Liston, Geoffrey Richard Clark, Dwight Alexander, Pacific Island Heritage: Archaeology, Identity & Community

Wikipedia, Ngerulmud


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