Exploring One of the Smallest Countries of the World

It’s been 52 years since Nauru gained independence. Settled by Micronesians and Polynesians at least 3,000 years ago, the remote Pacific island nation was annexed by Germany in 1888, ruled by the UK, Australia, and New Zealand under a League of Nations mandate after the First World War, captured by the Japanese in 1942, then governed (again by the UK, Australia and New Zealand) under a United Nations agreement until 1966. Full independence came two years later.

As Jonathan Liew, writing for The Telegraph, explained in 2016: "By the turn of the century, Nauru was virtually bankrupt. The entire center of the island had been ravaged by strip mining and was virtually unusable. Unemployment was at 90 percent. Corruption and money-laundering festered. Climate change was wrecking its fishing industry. And so when the Australian government offered it a sackful of cash in 2001 to host an offshore asylum processing center [where atrocities are allegedly rife], it had no choice but to accept. So until 2008, and again since 2012, Nauru has perhaps become best known as an auxiliary piece in Australia’s toxic immigration debate."

Here are a few fascinating facts about this little-known land.