Kiribati 🇰🇮

Kiribati is an independent state in Micronesia, and a member of the United Nations. The long form of the name is Independent and Sovereign Republic of Kiribati. The capital is South Tarawa.

Its territory runs to 811 km², which ranks it 191st of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind the Turks and Caicos Islands and just ahead of Bahrain. That makes it a little larger than Singapore.

Some 134,518 people call it home, placing it 192nd of 249 by population — between Curaçao above it and Seychelles below. Measured only against its own subregion, it is 1st of 7 in size and 2nd in population.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Kiribati ranks 191st of 249 by area and 192nd by population. That works out at less than a thousandth of a percent of the combined land area of all 249 entries and less than a thousandth of a percent of their combined population. Those denominators matter: this list includes territories and dependencies as well as UN member states, so a rank here is not the same as a rank among sovereign countries.

For a sense of scale, the entries immediately either side of Kiribati in the size ordering are Turks and Caicos Islands at 948 km² and Bahrain at 765 km², against Kiribati's 811 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Kiribati averages 166 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 81st of the 247 entries that have both a population and a measured area. Total area includes inland water, so the true figure for habitable land is higher than this.

Its reference point sits at 1.4° north and 173.0° east, which puts it in the northern hemisphere, roughly 158 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

Countries on the same parallel, far away in longitude, include DR Congo, Kenya and Malaysia.

It shares no land border with anyone. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, so everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air.

Kiribati has no land border with any country, which changes what "nearby" means. Measured centre to centre in a straight line, the closest other entry on this site is Nauru, roughly 710 km away. These are approximate distances between representative points, not the shortest crossing between two shorelines, so treat them as a sense of scale rather than a sailing chart.

No land border also means no land crossing: everything and everyone arrives by sea or by air. That single fact drives a lot of what follows on this page, from how goods reach the shops to why Kiribati's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Spread across 811 km², that works out at about 166 people per square kilometre, which makes it more crowded than the typical entry on this list. The median across all 249 entries here is about 91 per square kilometre.

Someone from Kiribati is an I-Kiribati.

It recognises 2 languages: English and Gilbertese. Gilbertese is listed for no other entry in this dataset, which makes it effectively unique to Kiribati. English, the first listed, is shared with 90 other entries worldwide.

Inside Oceania it places 11th of 27 by population, and it accounts for 26% of everyone living in Micronesia.

Zoom in from the world to Micronesia and Kiribati sits 2nd of 7 by population and 1st by area. Its immediate company in that ordering is Guam just above and Micronesia just below, which is a more honest comparison set than a global league table.

Guam is the largest of the group by population, and every entry in Micronesia has its own page here if you want to work through the whole neighbourhood rather than one country at a time.

• 🇬🇺 Guam
• 🇫🇲 Micronesia
• 🇬🇺 Guam

Kiribati does not have the Australian dollar to itself. It is one of 7 entries on this site that use the currency, whose code is AUD, and the others include listed below. A shared currency usually points at something real — a monetary union, a currency board, a former colonial administration, or a small economy pegging itself to a large neighbour's money — and it means a price quoted in AUD travels further than you might expect.

Language reaches wider still. English is listed for 91 entries here, Kiribati among them, so a visitor who speaks it can be understood across a large part of the map. Shared language tends to outlive the empires, trade routes and migrations that spread it, which is why the linguistic map and the political one rarely line up.

More than one currency circulates: Australian dollar (AUD) and Kiribati dollar (KID). That is a shared currency: 6 other entries use it, including Australia, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Nauru and Norfolk Island.

Websites there use the .ki domain. Calls from overseas start with +686. Standard country codes: ki and KIR.

South Tarawa is the seat of government and the answer most quizzes are looking for.

Kiribati is one of the 192 UN member states in this dataset. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.