Nauru

Nauru

Flag of Nauru

Official languages
Capital		 Nauruan and English
Yaren (but not officialy)
Area
Government		 21 km2
Parliamentary republic
Population
Religion		 9,378
Time zone
Currency		 (UTC+12)
Australian dollar
Demonym Nauruan
Preceded by
Succeeded by

Nauru is a small island country in Oceania, in Micronesia. The president of Nauru is Baron Waqa. Nauru is the smallest republic in the South Pacific. In the world, only the Vatican City has a smaller population.

The island of Nauru is made of phosphate rock from guano (seabird and bat droppings).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the island government allowed too much mining of the valuable phosphate mineral, so now the reserves on Nauru are almost entirely depleted.

Phosphate mining has left a large zagged crater in the middle of the island, with only a narrow strip of land that surrounds the island perimeter. Mining has stripped and ruined about 80 percent of Nauru's land area. About half of the native fish and marine life have been killed by the silt runoff of phosphate rock.[1] This has greatly harmed the economy of the country.

References

  1. ↑ Republic of Nauru (1999). "Climate Change – Response". First National Communication. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/naunc1.pdf. Retrieved 29 December 2014.
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