Nauru

Nauru, a single oval island of raised coral just south of the equator, governs itself as a republic in the central Pacific. A narrow coastal belt of palms and houses, ringed by one road, surrounds a plateau the islanders call Topside, where decades of phosphate mining have left a maze of grey coral pinnacles. Buada Lagoon lies in a hollow inland. The reef hugs the shore so closely that ships moor offshore and load phosphate from steel cantilevers reaching out over it.

Nauruans descend from Micronesian and Polynesian settlers and belong to twelve clans, recalled in the twelve-pointed star on the flag. John Fearn, a British whaler, sighted the island in 1798 and called it Pleasant Island. After a civil war fed by beachcombers’ guns, Germany annexed Nauru in 1888. Phosphate was identified in 1900 and mined from 1906. Japan occupied the island in 1942 and deported islanders to Chuuk, where many died. Independence came in January 1968, and Nauru took over its phosphate in 1970.

Australian rules football is the game everyone follows, and Nauruan weightlifters have won Commonwealth Games medals. Islanders once caught and tamed frigatebirds, and Angam Day each October celebrates the people’s recovery after epidemics and wartime exile. Phosphate royalties made Nauru rich until poor investments and exhausted deposits left it in debt; in 1993 Australia paid a settlement towards repairing the mined land. Secondary mining, tuna licences and Australian aid support the economy.