Tuvalu

The fourth smallest country in the world, nine atolls with twenty-six square kilometres of land, and the state that has made rising seas a diplomatic argument. Polynesians settled these islands from Samoa and Tonga, and the Ellice Islanders were administered by Britain with the Micronesian Gilberts from 1892, a pairing that made little sense ethnically. Peruvian slavers took a large part of the population of two atolls in the 1860s and none returned. Tuvaluans voted in 1974 to separate from the Gilbertese, one of the few peaceful secessions in decolonisation, and became independent on 1 October 1978. Its economy has almost no conventional base - fishing licences, remittances from seafarers, and a trust fund - and its most reliable income has been leasing the internet domain .tv, which by accident is valuable to broadcasters. Highest ground in the country is about four and a half metres. Tuvalu's governments have been among the loudest voices in climate negotiations for three decades, and its foreign minister recorded a 2021 address standing knee-deep in the sea. In 2022 it announced it would replicate itself as a digital state to preserve sovereignty if the land goes. Australia signed a treaty in 2023 offering residency to Tuvaluans. About eleven thousand people live there. Funafuti is the capital and its lagoon the largest in the country. Tuvalu joined the United Nations in 2000, funded partly by the domain lease. Its name means eight standing together, for the eight traditionally inhabited atolls. The airstrip doubles as the island's main open space.

MyHistorian
A causal knowledge graph of history