Japanese Government in Koror

Date: April 1, 1922 • Location: Koror, Palau

Under the South Seas Mandate, Japan set up a government in Koror, precipitating large-scale Japanese settlement in Palau.

The South Seas Mandate was a League of Nations mandate given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following World War I. The mandate consisted of islands in the north Pacific Ocean that had been part of German New Guinea within the German colonial empire, in a part of the world broadly known as the South Seas. The islands were occupied by Japan during World War I, and Japan subsequently governed them under the mandate as part of the Japanese colonial empire. During World War II the United States captured the islands, and after the war the United Nations revoked the mandate and established in its place the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands which was governed by the United States. The islands are now part of Palau, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.