Nauru 🇳🇷

Nauru is a country in Micronesia, one of the 7 entries this site files under that subregion. The long form of the name is Republic of Nauru. The capital is Yaren.

Its territory runs to 21 km², which ranks it 243rd of the 249 countries and territories in this dataset — just behind Tuvalu and just ahead of Saint Barthélemy. Put next to a country most people can picture, it is around a fifth smaller than Tuvalu.

Some 11,947 people call it home, placing it 227th of 249 by population — between Anguilla above it and Wallis and Futuna below. Within Micronesia alone it is the 7th largest of 7 and the 7th most populous.

Put next to every other entry on this site, Nauru ranks 243rd of 249 by area and 227th 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 Nauru in the size ordering are Tuvalu at 26 km² and Saint Barthélemy at 21 km², against Nauru's 21 km². If you can already picture one of those, you can picture this one.

Density tells a different story from either raw figure. Nauru averages 569 people per square kilometre of total area, which makes it densely settled by global standards — 21st 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.

The coordinates the dataset gives are 0.5° S, 166.9° E, which puts it in the southern hemisphere, roughly 59 km from the equator, in what geographers would call the equatorial belt.

DR Congo, Kenya and Congo sit at almost exactly the same latitude on other parts of the globe.

There is no land frontier at all — every boundary it has is a coastline. That puts it among the 85 entries of 249 here with no land neighbours, which shapes how it trades and who it deals with.

Nauru 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 Kiribati, 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 Nauru's dialling code and internet domain are worth knowing before you travel.

Population divided by land area gives roughly 569 people per square kilometre, which makes it densely populated. For comparison, the median entry on this list sits near 91 per square kilometre.

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

The demonym is Nauruan, so residents are Nauruans.

Inside Oceania it places 19th of 27 by population, and it accounts for 2.3% of everyone living in Micronesia.

Within Micronesia, Nauru is the least populous of the 7 entries listed here, and 7th by area. Palau is the next step up. Being the smallest of a group is not the same as being small in absolute terms — the subregional context is what gives the figure meaning.

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.

• 🇵🇼 Palau
• 🇬🇺 Guam

Nauru 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, Nauru 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.

The currency is the Australian dollar ($, AUD). That is a shared currency: 6 other entries use it, including Australia, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Kiribati and Norfolk Island.

Its internet country code is .nr. To phone it from abroad you dial +674. In ISO terms it is nr in two letters and NRU in three.

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

As a sovereign state it is among the 192 UN members listed here. The other 57 entries are territories, dependencies or observers, which is why totals on this site run to 249 rather than the familiar 195.