Republic of kiribati

REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI

Capital and largest city: SOUTH TARAWA
Official lenguages English and Gilbertese
Independence from United Kingdom in july 12 1979
Population96.000 cencus 2005

Officially the republic of Kiribati is an island nation located in the central tropical pacific ocean.

EARLY HISTORY

The area now called Kiribati hasbeen inhabited by Micronesians speaking the same oceanic language since sometimes between 3000 BC and AD 1300. the area was not isolated ; invaders from tonga, samoa, and fijilater introduced Polynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects, respectively. Intermariiage tended tu blur cultural differences and resulted in a significant degree of culturalhomogenization.

INDEPENDENCE DAY
The Gilbert and Ellice islands gained self-rule in 1971, and were separated in 1975 and granted internal self government by Britain. In 1978the Ellice Islands became the independent nation of Tuvalu. The Gilbert islands became independent as Kiribati on July 12, 1979

ECONOMY
Kiribati has few naturalresources commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted at the time of independence. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports
Tourism provides morethan one-fifth of GDP
Main export and import countries are Australia, USA, France, Japan, Hong Kong, and Germany.

TRANSPORT
Kiribati’s Bonriki International Airport isthe hub of the national (domestic) airline

FLAG
The upper half is red with a gold frigatebird flying over a gold rising sun, and the lower half is blue with the threehorizontal wavy white stripes to represent the ocean , and 3 groups ( Gilbert, Phoenix and Line Islands). The 17 rays of the sun represent the 16 Gilbert islands and Banaba