Gilbert and Ellice Islands French captain Louis Duperrey was the first to map the whole Gilbert Islands archipelago. He commanded "La Coquille" on its circumnavigation of the earth (1822–1825). Funafuti atoll was named Ellice's Island after Edward Ellice, a British politician and merchant, by Captain Arent de Peyster, who sighted the islands in 1819 sailing on the ship "Rebecca". Ellice owned the cargo of the ship. The name Ellice was applied to all nine islands, of what is now Tuvalu, after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay. The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were formerly designated an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code "GE"
Marshall Islands at the 2016 Summer Olympics of their largest Olympic delegations, matching their size in 2008. The delegation, however, failed to win their first-ever Olympic medal. The Marshall Islands are a Micronesian island nation, located in the western Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. As of 2016 the nation had a population of approximately 53,000. The islands were under Spain's influence until their annexation by Germany in 1885. Japan occupied the Islands during World War I and formally annexed them as part of its postwar South Pacific Mandate. The Marshall Islands were placed under United States control in 1944. The islands granted independence in 1986