Facts About Nauru

Nauru is a micronesian island nation northeast of Australia.

It has a coral reef and palm-fringed white-sand beaches, including Anibare Bay on the east coast.

Buada Lagoon is surrounded by tropical vegetation on the inland side.

Command Ridge, the island's highest point, has a rusted Japanese outpost from WWII.

Moqua Well, an underground freshwater lake, is located among the limestone Moqua Caves.

Nauru is a small oval-shaped island in the western Pacific Ocean in Oceania.

The first inhabitants of Nauru's origins are unknown. When Europeans arrived in the 18th century, Nauruan society was divided into 12 ancestral tribal groups, each with its own chief.

Nauru does not have an official capital city. Its government offices, however, are in the Yaren District.

When British navigator Captain John Fearn sailed past Nauru on his way from New Zealand to the China Seas in 1798, he named it Pleasant Island.

The flag of Nauru is composed of a blue background representing the Pacific Ocean, a single horizontal yellow stripe representing the Equator, and a 12-pointed white star representing the island's location (to the south of the equator and west of the international date line), independence, and the 12 original tribes of Nauru.

By population, Nauru is the world's second-smallest sovereign country after Tuvalu. Technically, Vatican City is smaller but is not a UN member state.

Nauru is the world's second-smallest sovereign nation by land area, after Monaco. It is also the Pacific Ocean's smallest country, the world's smallest country outside of Europe, the world's smallest island country, and the world's smallest independent republic.

Nauru is one of only 22 countries without an army.

Nauru is most likely the world's least visited country. There were not even enough visitors to make the World Tourism Organization's most recent report. According to some estimates, only about 200 tourists visit Nauru each year.

Nauru has the world's fattest population. According to a 2017 report, Nauru is the world's most obese nation, with 88.5% of its population over the age of 18 classified as obese.

Nauru has the world's second-smallest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), trailing only Tuvalu.

Nauru has only 30 kilometres of road. Only Tuvalu has a shorter total length of road than the rest of the world.

Despite its small size, Nauru has a 5km railway line. It serves the phosphate mine by transporting ore to dryers before loading it onto ships.

There were discussions in 1963 and again in 1970 about relocating the entire Nauru population to an island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, because scientists predicted that Nauru would be uninhabitable by the mid-1990s. The Nauruans were opposed to the idea and chose to stay.

The central region of Nauru has been devastated by phosphate mining, transforming it into a barren wasteland with 15m-high serrated coral pinnacles protruding from the ground. Mining depleted between 80% and 90% of the land area over a century.

As a result of habitat loss, many indigenous birds have either disappeared or become rare.

When a secondary phosphate deposit was discovered in 2005, phosphate mining resumed. According to the government, this secondary deposit will last approximately 30 years.

Because of its rich, deep phosphate mines, Nauru was once the wealthiest country in the world (per capita).

Nauru has been used by Australia as an asylum-seeker detention camp since 2001. The International Criminal Court ruled that the conditions and treatment of asylum seekers were illegal, citing widespread allegations of human rights violations and overcrowding.

Since its inception in 1996, Nauru has never won an Olympic medal.

During the 1990s, Narua became a money-laundering haven, selling banking licences and passports, including diplomatic passports with up to $30,000 in immunity. The Russian mafia and al-Qaida were among the clients.

Nauru has also raised supplementary income by recognising breakaway and disputed countries. A state seeking sovereignty can only be taken seriously if other UN member states recognise it (the more, the better). In exchange for $50 million in Russian aid, Nauru recognised Russia-backed Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2009. Other controversial examples have included Kosovo and Taiwan.

Nauru has historically had extremely high unemployment rates. It was estimated in 2004 to be 90%. In 2011, it had dropped to 23%.