In the wake of World War II, in a move close­ly relat­ed to the begin­nings of the Cold War, the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca decid­ed to resume nuclear test­ing in the Pacif­ic Ocean, on Biki­ni Atoll in the Mar­shall arch­i­pel­ago. After the dis­place­ment of the local inhab­i­tants, 67 nuclear tests were car­ried out from 1946 to 1958, includ­ing the explo­sion of the first H‑bomb (1952). Biki­ni Atoll has con­served direct tan­gi­ble evi­dence that is high­ly sig­nif­i­cant in con­vey­ing the pow­er of the nuclear tests, i.e. the sunken ships sent to the bot­tom of the lagoon by the tests in 1946 and the gigan­tic Bra­vo crater. Equiv­a­lent to 7,000 times the force of the Hiroshi­ma bomb, the tests had major con­se­quences on the geol­o­gy and nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment of Biki­ni Atoll and on the health of those who were exposed to radi­a­tion. Through its his­to­ry, the atoll sym­bol­is­es the dawn of the nuclear age, despite its para­dox­i­cal image of peace and of earth­ly par­adise. This is the first site from the Mar­shall Islands to be inscribed on the World Her­itage List.