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| Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) is an uninhabited 2.3-square-mile (6.0 kmē) atoll in one of the Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands. It consists of 36 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 kmē) lagoon. As part of the Pacific Proving Grounds it was the site of more than 20 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958, including the first test of a practical dry fuel hydrogen bomb in 1952.
The navigator and explorer Otto von Kotzebue named Bikini Atoll Eschscholtz Atoll after the scientist Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz.
Preceding the nuclear tests, the indigenous population was relocated to Rongerik Atoll. The United States government enrolled some of the Marshallese into a secret medical experiment called Project 4.1. The intent of the project was to study the effects of radiation on human beings. Government and mainstream historical sources point to the study being organized on March 6 or March 7, 1954, six days after the Bravo shot. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some of the original islanders returned from Kili Island but were later removed because of the high radioactivity.
Bikini Island is the northeasternmost and largest island of Bikini Atoll. It is the best-known and most important island of the atoll, and measures about four kilometres. About twelve kilometres to the northwest is Aomen, the first island in that direction, and to the south of Bikini is Bukonfuaaku.
Bikini Island is well-known for being the subject of nuclear bomb tests, and because the bikini swimsuit was named after the island in 1946. The two piece swimsuit was introduced within days of the first nuclear test on the atoll, and the name of the island was in the news.
Between 1946 and 1958, twenty-three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll. The March 1st, 1954 detonation codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted, and created widespread radioactive contamination.
The Micronesian inhabitants, who numbered about 200 before the United States relocated them after World War II, ate fish, shellfish, bananas, and coconuts. A large majority of the Bikinians were moved to a single island named Kili as part of their temporary homestead, but remain until today and receive compensation from the United States for their survival.
In 1968 the United States declared Bikini habitable and started bringing a small group of Bikinians back to their homes in the early 1970s as a test. In 1978, however, the islanders were removed again when strontium-90 in their bodies reached dangerous levels after a French team of scientists did additional tests on the island. It was not uncommon for women to experience faulty pregnancies, miscarriages, stillbirths and damage to their offspring as a result of the nuclear testing on Bikini. The United States provided $150 million as a settlement for damages caused by the nuclear testing program.
The clean-up operation scraped off the top 16 inches of soil from the main island of Bikini, generating a million cubic feet of radioactive soil that could not be disposed of, at a cost that far exceeds this compensation award.
Prior to the explosion of the first atomic bomb on the island, the lagoon at Bikini was designated as a ship graveyard during World War II by the US. Today the Bikini Lagoon is still home to a large number of vessels from the United States and other countries. The dangers of the radioactivity and limited services in the area led to divers staying away from one of the most remarkable potential diving sites in the Pacific for many years. Today a limited number of divers head for the lagoon at Bikini every year for an extensive tour of World War II naval vessels. The dive spot has become popular among divers in the last 10 years. The lagoon contains a larger amount of sealife than usual due to the lack of fishing, including sharks, increasing the fascination with the spot as a diver's adventure spot.
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