Palau is the westernmost group of the Caroline Islands. It lies some 500 miles southwest of Guam and 1,000 miles southeast of Manila. It consists of one very large island (Babelthuap, or Babeldaob), three islands that contain most of the population in and near the capital of Koror, and hundreds of other islands, islets, and atolls spread out over some 420 miles of the Pacific (see Figure 7-7 and Table 7-5). Both its early and recent history parallel that of the Northern Mariana Islands with one exception; it is the last remaining area that is still part of the TTPI. The Republic of Palau (or Belau, as it also is known) functions autonomously, but six plebiscites failed to approve the compact that would have allowed Palau to follow the rest of Micronesia into independence via free association with the United States; the last one before the decennial census, requiring 75 percent of the vote to approve the compact passed by the 99th Congress (Public Law 99-658) and amended by the 101st Congress (P.L. 101-219), received only 61 percent on February 6, 1990. Because it was still under United States jurisdiction on January 1, 1990, the Census Bureau included Palau in the 1990 census. On November 4, 1992, voters reduced the constitutional requirement for passage of a compact of free association to a simple majority, with the intention of facilitating passage at some future time, and thereby taking Palau into free association before the 2000 census. In a plebiscite on November 9, 1993, Palauans approved the compact with 68 percent of the vote. Establishment of a freely associated State is pending final Congressional approval, and independence is tentatively scheduled for October 1, 1994.
Palauans elect a president and vice president, a 16-member House of Delegates, and a 14-member Senate; the two legislative bodies constitute the Olbiil Era Kelulau. The president also is advised on traditional matters by a Council of Chiefs, one from the council of chiefs of each state. Palauan is the language commonly spoken in Palau.
Palau was included in the same population censuses as the CNMI, but it has never been included in the economic or agriculture censuses. The Census Bureau treats Palau as the statistical equivalent of a State.
