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The Caroline Islands are a widely scattered archipelago consisting of about 500 small coral islands, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines. The Carolines consist of two republics: the Federated States of Micronesia, consisting of approximately 600 islands on the eastern side of the chain with Kosrae being the most eastern; and Palau consisting of 250 islands on the western side.

500 = 600 + 250?

PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 13:27, 30 May 2021 (UTC) reply

I agree this looks bad. It gets worse if you look at Palau, which says it has 340 islands, and that claim is supported by the government yearbook, p 3. I'm not so sure the figure for Federated States of Micronesia is accurate; the figure in the Wikipedia article is very specific at 607, and perhaps the sources I find online are just repeating this. The figure of 500 for the Caroline Islands is given in many places, including sources which predate Wikipedia. Oxford Reference is one source I found which gives a higher number: 680, which isn't enough to make the arithmetic fit.

It could be that either FSM or Palau have some islands which are not part of the Carolines, but I don't see any evidence for this. I think the problem is that counting islands depends on what one considers an island. Is a barren rock jutting out of the ocean just off shore an island? What about a sandbank which is only exposed at low tide? An atoll often has many cays; do you count one atoll or each cay?

The problem here is synthesis: we are combining figures from different sources, and when they all appear in the same paragraph we get this effect of the figures not adding up.- gadfium 22:32, 30 May 2021 (UTC) reply

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia says the Carolines have 936 islands or clusters which seems to be in accord with the country numbers. I suspect this work is not considered reliable on political matters, but it might be all right for geography. There probably are better sources yet to be uncovered.- gadfium 22:43, 30 May 2021 (UTC) reply

If the Soviet Encyclopedia is mathematically consistent, I'd say it'll do as a source. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 23:54, 20 December 2021 (UTC) reply

From the above discussion, it seems there are 500-936 in the Caroline Islands. Adding 16 in the Gilbert Islands, 15 in the Mariana Islands, and 1,156 in the Marshall Islands, this gives a count of about 2000. I've replaced "thousands" in the opening paragraph just now with "about 2000". Mebden ( talk) 13:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC) reply

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The redirect 미크로네시아 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 May 11 § 미크로네시아 until a consensus is reached. The Night Watch (talk) 14:43, 11 May 2023 (UTC) reply

I sometimes hear Ogasawara (and on occasions some of the southern Izu Islands) being described as Micronesian. Is there any grounds to this? And should they be included in this article? - Nintentoad125 ( talk) 21:36, 28 January 2024 (UTC) reply