- Kiribati's republic, island country of Oceania (Micronesia), situated in the centre of the Pacific Ocean. It is an archipelago formed with three groups of coral atolls (16 islands Gilbert, 8 islands Phoenix, 11 islands of the Line) and of a volcanic island (Banaba or island Ocean), distributed on about 5 millions of km2, on both sides an equator. Only about twenty these islands is lived. The island Christmas or Kiritimati, situated in the islands of the Line, is the biggest atoll of the archipelago. This one is populated by Micronesians (islands Gilbert) and by Polynesians (islands Phoenix). The population is Christian in more than 90 p. 100. Official language is English. With the exception of the island Banaba, archipelagoes are established(constituted) by low islands of coral structure (atolls surrounding lagoons), covered with a luxuriant vegetation and with coconut palms on banks. The climate is tropical (rainy season from October till March, aridity sometimes very long near the equator). Islands are periodically got(touched) with cyclones. The capital of Kiribati's republic is Tarawa (island of Tarawa, archipelago of Gilbert). Economy remains another economy of semi-subsistence, based on the agriculture and the peach(fishing). Main cultures are the banana, the breadfruit tree, the papaya and the coconut ( only commercial culture). The reserves of phosphate of the island Banaba, exploited(run) from 1900 till 1980, are today exhausted. The main products of export are henceforth the copra and the products of the peach(fishing). The archipelago lives for the main thing of the international help. Kiribati's monetary unit is the Australian dollar. Kiribati possesses an appendix of the university of the Pacific the South, based in the Fiji Islands. The archipelago is lived by the population micronzsian since two thousand years. Islands were discovered(found) by British navigators to the end of XVIII-th century (John Byron, on 1765; James Cook, on 1777; John Marshall, on 1788). They became British possessions (protectorate of islands Gilbert and Ellice in 1892, colony of the Crown in 1916). Occupied by the Japanese in December, 1941, during Second World war, they were reconquerred by the Americans in November, 1943. These used it how base to neutralize then the Caroline Islands and the Mariana Islands. In 1975, the Polynesian islands of Ellice parted from the rest of the archipelago, following a referendum, and became independent under the name of Tuvalu. The rest of the colony became independent under the name of Kiribati, on July 12, 1979. Political system is a parliamentary democracy. Total surface of the country: 717 km2!; population ( 1990 ): 72 298 inhabitants.
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