Kiribati

## Map

Kiribati *(Pronounced* ***kee·ruh·bas**)*, oficially the Republic of Kiribati, is a country located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean. The country is composed of 32 atolls and one coral. The population of the country is 176,708 (2050). The country has a surface area of 811 km2 *(313 square miles)* across nearly 3,500,000 km2 *(1,400,000 square miles)* of ocean. The capital and largest city is South Tarawa on the Tarawa atoll.

## History

### Ancient Times

The I-Kiribati territory was populated by an ethnic group from Micronesia who spoke the same Oceanic language for more than 3,000 years before coming into contact with Europeans. The area was not isolated; invaders from Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji introduced aspects of Polynesian and Melanesian culture. Inter-village marriages tended to blur cultural differences and gave rise to a significant degree of cultural homogenization.

### Colonial Period

The islands were conquered by Spanish ships at the beginning of the 16th century. Between 1528-1707 the islands were conquered by ships commanded by two Portuguese and one Spanish: Ferdinand Magellan, Pedro Fernández de Quirós and Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón (Spanish rule was from 1528 to 1885). In 1820, the islands were renamed the Gilbert Islands by the Russian admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern, in honor of the British captain Thomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788 ("Kiribati" is the local possessive pronunciation of "Gilbert" (Gilbert's) The first English colonial settlement was founded in 1837. The Gilbert Islands were a British protectorate along with the nearby Ellice Islands further south from 1892. Both archipelagos became colonies in 1916. Kiritimati (Christmas) Atoll was part from the colony in 1919 and the Phoenix Islands were added in 1937.

Tarawa and other islands in the Gilbert group were occupied by Japan in World War II. Tarawa was the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the United States Marine Corps. The Marines landed on November 20, 1943, the Battle of Tarawa was fought in the capital of Kiribati: Bairiki, on the Tarawa Atoll. In the 1950s, Christmas Island was the site of three major British government nuclear tests.

### Modern Day

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands achieved autonomy in 1971 and separated in 1975. Seven years later, in 1978, the Ellices declared their independence as the Republic of Tuvalu, while the Gilberts waited another year and became a state. independence on April 10, 1979. Since then, the United States has ceased to claim the Phoenix Islands, an archipelago in the Pacific southeast of the Gilbert Islands, and three other islands in the same area. All of them have since become part of the territory of Kiribati. These separations were protected by the ethnic and cultural differences of the inhabitants with respect to the Kiribatians.

In the 1980s, overpopulation was a very serious problem: in 1988 it was announced that 4,700 residents of the main group of islands would be relocated to less populated islands. In those years, Kiribati was designated by the UN as one of the poorest countries in the world; this precipitated the arrival of humanitarian resources from various countries. Another UN report from 1989 showed that Kiribati would be one of the first countries to disappear as a result of rising sea levels due to global warming.

#### 2020 & Onwards

In 2020, the country was the last to report a COVID-19 case in Oceania. Currently, the country is at risk of disappearing due to the rise in the level of the Pacific Ocean caused by climate change.

It's presidents have announced that the islands will disappear and has begun an international tour to find an adopted homeland for his fellow nationals, so far only answered by New Zealand.