Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Ngerulmud
- Region
- Oceania, Micronesia
- Population
- 17,663 (2025)
- Area
- 458 km²
- Currency
- United States dollar (USD)
- Languages
- Palauan, Sonsorol, English, Tobian, Japanese
- Calling code
- +680
- Internet domain
- .pw
- ISO codes
- PW, PLW, 585
- Time zone
- UTC+9:00
- United Nations
- Member state
- Postal code pattern
- 96940 (# = digit, @ = letter)
Land and position
Palau covers about 458 square kilometres. By area it ranks 203rd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Andorra and a little larger than Seychelles. It has no land border with any other country. Its centre lies at about 8° north, 134° east, in the northern hemisphere.
People
About 17,663 people live in Palau (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 226th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure. On average there are 39 people to each square kilometre. About 79 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 69 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: Palauan, Sonsorol, English, Tobian, Japanese, Filipino, Chinese. A person from Palau is called Palauan.
Money and economy
The currency is the United States dollar (code USD, symbol $). It is also the main currency of American Samoa, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Caribbean Netherlands, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guam, Marshall Islands and 7 more. The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 345 million (2025), which is about US$ 19,532 for each person (2025).
Time
Palau uses one time zone, UTC+9:00 (Pacific/Palau). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
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Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
More in Micronesia
Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.