Kiribati

Thirty-three atolls spread across an ocean area larger than India, with a total land area smaller than New York City. Kiribati straddles the equator and, since a 1995 date line adjustment, is the first country to see each new day. Its I-Kiribati people navigated and settled these atolls thousands of years ago and developed an unusually elaborate ocean navigation tradition and stone maneaba meeting houses that still anchor village governance. Britain declared a protectorate over the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1892 and mined Banaba, a raised island like Nauru, for phosphate until it was exhausted in 1979 - the Banabans were relocated to Rabi in Fiji in 1945 and largely remain there. Tarawa was the site of a ferocious three-day American assault in November 1943 that killed nearly the entire Japanese garrison and shocked the American public with its casualty figures. The Ellice Islands voted to separate in 1974, becoming Tuvalu, and Kiribati became independent on 12 July 1979. Britain and the United States tested nuclear weapons at Kiritimati and Malden in the 1950s and 1960s. Almost no point in the country stands more than a few metres above sea level. The government bought land in Fiji in 2014 as insurance. South Tarawa is the seat of government and holds about half the population. The country's exclusive economic zone covers over three million square kilometres. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is a World Heritage site. Kiritimati is the largest coral atoll on earth by land area. The country spans three time zones and four thousand kilometres of ocean.

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