Island country in the central Pacific
About Kiribati
Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an archipelagic country spanning the Micronesia and Polynesia sub-regions of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. The state comprises 32 atolls and other islands and one remote raised coral island, Banaba. Its total land area is 811 km2 (313 sq mi) dispersed over 3,441,810 km2 (1,328,890 sq mi) of ocean. The spread of the country's islands, from Banaba in the west to Kiritimati in the east straddles the equator and the 180th meridian. The International Date Line goes around Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching 150°W. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the same day as the Gilbert Islands and places them in the most advanced time zone on Earth: UTC+14.
Etymology and pronunciation
The name is pronounced KIRR-i-bass, as -ti in the Gilbertese language represents an [s] sound. Similarly, the name of its people, the I-Kiribati, is pronounced ee-KIRR-i-bass. The name Kiribati was adopted upon the country's independence in 1979. It is the Gilbertese rendition of Gilberts, the plural of the English name of the nation's main archipelago, the Gilbert Islands. It was named îles Gilbert (French for 'Gilbert Islands') in about 1820 by Russian admiral Adam von Krusenstern and French captain Louis Duperrey, after the British captain Thomas Gilbert. Gilbert and captain John Marshall sighted some of the islands in 1788, while charting the "outer passage" route from Port Jackson to Canton. Both von Krusenstern's and Duperrey's maps, published in 1824, were written in French. …
History
The area now called Kiribati has been inhabited by Austronesian peoples speaking the same Oceanic language, from north to south, including the southernmost Nui, since sometime between 3000 BC and 1300 AD. The area was not completely isolated; later, voyagers from Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji introduced some Polynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects, respectively. Intermarriage and intense navigation between the islands tended to blur cultural differences and resulted in a significant degree of cultural homogenization. Local oral historians chiefly in the form of lore keepers suggest that the area was first inhabited by a group of seafaring people from Melanesia, who were described as being dark-skinned, frizzy-haired, and short in stature. …
Geography
Kiribati consists of 32 atolls and one solitary island (Banaba), extending into the eastern and western hemispheres, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres. It is the only country to reside in all four hemispheres. Its extensive exclusive economic zone (EEZ) covers three, non-contiguous, traditional geographic subregions: Banaba (Melanesian-Micronesian area), the Gilbert Islands (Micronesia) and the Line and Phoenix Islands (Polynesia). …
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