Nan Madol was built almost entirely from columns of naturally occurring basalt, stacked into nearly a hundred artificial islets, without help from anything resembling a modern crane.
A city on the reef
The site consists of close to a hundred small artificial islets constructed on a coral reef off Pohnpei, built up using naturally hexagonal basalt columns stacked in log-cabin style walls, some structures rising several metres, giving the complex its popular nickname as the Venice of the Pacific for its network of tidal canals separating the islets.
The Saudeleur dynasty's seat
Nan Madol served as the political and ceremonial centre of the Saudeleur dynasty, which unified Pohnpei under a centralised rule for several centuries before its collapse, with specific islets functioning as residences, tombs and ceremonial spaces for the ruling elite rather than as an ordinary settlement for the general population.
Threatened by the sea it was built beside
The site's coastal, low-lying construction makes it particularly exposed to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, and its remote location and challenging access, including a significant local mosquito-borne illness risk, have limited both tourism and conservation investment, leaving Nan Madol among the more physically at-risk major archaeological sites covered in this atlas.