Ailinginae Atoll

Ailinginae is a coral atoll at the northern end of the Marshall Islands’ Ralik chain. Its twenty-five low islands contain only 2.8 square kilometers of land, yet they enclose a lagoon of 105.96 square kilometers. No point rises more than three meters above the sea. Mogiri and Eniibukku passages connect the sheltered lagoon to the open Pacific. Scrub, grasses and stands of Pisonia grandis cover a narrow, salt-touched surface, while the average daytime temperature is about 27°C and the main rainy season runs from September to November.

Álvaro de Saavedra made the first European sighting on 1 January 1528. He charted Ailinginae with Utirik and Rongelap as Islas de los Reyes, or Islands of the Three Wise Kings, because the date was close to Epiphany. The name belonged to the visitors’ calendar rather than to island society. Reef passages, low land and a large lagoon explain both how island life could exist here and why a community on such slight ground was exposed to changes arriving from beyond the horizon.