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By Islomaniac | September 9, 2007
For the last several days whenever I sat down to write my post(s) for the day the first island that popped into my mind was Kiribati. Unfortunately each day I found something slightly more important to write about. Today however I am giving this tiny island nation the attention it deserves and finally writing about Kiribati.
The Republic of Kiribati is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The nation is composed of 33 atolls spread over a 1,351,000 square miles. Straddling both the equator and the International Date Line this island nation has a rich and diverse history.
For almost 2,000 years Kiribati was inhabited by a single ethnic group that spoke a single language. Upon the arrival of British and American ships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the islands were renamed the Gilbert Islands. In 1837 the first British citizens arrived and the Gilbert Islands officially became a protectorate of the British Empire.
The Gilbert Islands and their companion Ellice Islands were separated in 1975. The Ellice Islands became the independent nation of Tuvalu and Kiribati’s independence followed in 1979.
Since that time overcrowding has become a problem and 4,700 residents of the main island have had to be resettled onto less populated islands. In 1994 president Teburoro Tito moved the International Date Line far to the east to encompass Kiribati’s Line Islands group so that it would no longer be divided by the date line. This allowed businesses to keep the same business week. Kiribati also became the first country to see the dawn of the third millennium which was a significant event for tourism.
To read more about Kiribati visit here and here.
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September 9th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
or, if you want to read something incredibly funny about these islands check out the book “the sex lives of cannibals” by maartin troost. great book.
September 10th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
You’ve never been to Kiribati have you?? It’s a bit more than a few facts found on the Internet. You should visit! I’ve lived here now for ten years. It is an incredible place, for many, many reasons!