Kiribati

Kiribati (pronounced "Kiribass") is a nation of atolls scattered over a huge stretch of the central Pacific: thirty-three tiny islands spread across more than three million square kilometres of ocean, one of the largest sea areas in the world for one of the smallest countries by land. It is the only country in all four hemispheres, crossed by both the equator and the 180th meridian. About 130,000 people, the I-Kiribati, live there, mostly on Tarawa atoll. Lying barely above the water, it is one of the countries most threatened by rising seas.

Kiribati is made almost entirely of coral atolls: thin rings of land barely above the sea, circling lagoons and fringed with beaches and coconut palms. There are no mountains or rivers, and most atolls rise only two or three metres above the sea (only Banaba island reaches 81 metres), which makes Kiribati one of the countries most directly threatened by rising water, so much so that the government has bought land in Fiji for its people's future. The islands fall into three groups, the Gilberts, the Phoenix Islands and the Line Islands, thousands of kilometres of ocean apart.

Settled about three thousand years ago by Austronesian seafarers, the Gilbert Islands developed a clan-based society, later joined by people from elsewhere in the Pacific. Whalers and missionaries arrived in the 19th century, before the islands became a British protectorate. In the Second World War, Tarawa atoll was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific war between the Americans and the Japanese. The country became independent in 1979 under the name Kiribati and has since campaigned on the world stage to draw attention to nations threatened by climate change.

People speak Gilbertese (Kiribati), an Oceanic Austronesian language, alongside English, the official language. The country is overwhelmingly Christian, Catholic and Protestant since the missionaries came: the church is the heart of every village, and choral singing matters a great deal. This faith has blended with the traditional values of community, sharing and respect for elders, which still underpin social life.

I-Kiribati culture is that of a sea people, expert at navigating and fishing on vast lagoons. It is famous for its dances, whose sharp movements of the arms and head imitate the frigatebird, set to powerful singing and drumming on a mat. At the centre of each village stands the meeting house (the maneaba), a large thatched hall where decisions are made. Weaving is practised too, and armour was once made from coconut fibre. Life revolves around fish, coconut and breadfruit, on islands where space and fresh water are scarce.