The population is made up of approx. 98% Kiribatians, who belong to the Micronesian ethnic group, and 2% Polynesians and Europeans.
Religions
The main religion is Christianity. The affiliations to the religions are composed as follows:
Catholics around 55%
Protestants around 36%
Mormons around 3%
Bahai around 2.2%
others about 3.7%.
Languages
The official languages of the island state are Kiribati and English.
Capital
Bairiki
The capital of Kiribati is Bairiki, which belongs to the district of South Tarawa – located on the Tarawa Atoll. Around 45,000 people live in the South Tarawa district. The human-inhabited area of the atoll extends over several islands connected by navigable dams. The length of the atoll is approximately 30 km with a maximum width of a little more than 1 km. According to Abbreviation Finder, KIR stands for Kiribati in English. Click to see other meanings of this 3-letter acronym.
Note
Since Bairiki belongs to the South Tarawa district, South Tawara is often given as the capital.
Kiribati: Geography and Map
The islands of Kiribati are located in the middle of the southern Pacific in Micronesia. Check topmbadirectory for politics, flags, famous people, animals and plants of Kiribati.
The state consists of 33 islands with an area of 811 km², 21 of which are inhabited. The 33 islands are divided into the following island groups:
the former Gilbert Islands with 16 islands, with a total area of 282 km², the island group includes the 31.9 km² island of Tawara – the main atoll of the Republic of Kiribati with the capital South Tarawa.
the line islands with 8 islands, with a total area of 495 km²
the Phoenix Islands with 8 islands, with a total area of 27.7 km²
the island of Banaba with a size of 6.5 km² and approx. 340 residentsBanaba is one of the three large islands with phosphate deposits in the Pacific. The other two islands where phosphate is found are Makatea in French Polynesia and Nauru.
Christmas Island
The largest island in Kiribati is Christmas Island, which belongs to the group of Line Islands. It occupies an area of approx. 375 km².
Note
On the Tawara Atoll lies the island of Bairiki, which belongs to the district of West Tawara – with an area of around 0.5 km² and around 2,750 residents. Since most of the government buildings of Kiribati are located here, the place is considered the capital of the island state.
Coastline, tidal range
In Kiribati, the mean tidal range is around 2-3 m – with a coastline of all islands of around 1,145 km.
Compare
The world’s highest tidal range can be found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, where it is up to 16 meters, and at spring tide even over 20 meters. The Bay of Fundy is located on the Atlantic between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is called Nova Scotia in German and whose capital is Halifax.
On the German North Sea coast it varies between one and three meters. In the western Baltic Sea, on the other hand, the tidal range is only 0.3 meters, while it is barely noticeable in the eastern Baltic Sea.
Longitude and latitude
Kiribati covers the following latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and longitude (abbreviation Δλ):
Δφ = from 3 ° north to 8 ° south Δλ = from 169 ° east to 152 ° west
You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.
Legal time
For Kiribati, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time without summer time. A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later there than after CET:
Δt (CET) = + 13 h
Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.
The highest point of the sun in Bairiki
Bairiki, the capital of the country, lies at a northern latitude of φ = 01 ° 20 ‘and thus in the middle of the tropics.
If the declination δ of the sun corresponds to the value of 01 ° 20 ‘N and thus the image point of the sun is exactly above the city, the sun is vertically above the city. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly 6 days after March 21st and 6 days before September 21st.
Attention
If the image point of the sun and thus the declination is north of the latitude of Bairiki, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where, like us, it sets.
Surveys on Kiribaki
The highest point is on the island of Banaba with a height of 81 m.
The Pacific
With a total coastline of 1,145 km, Kiribati borders the Pacific Ocean – more precisely, Kiribati lies in the South Pacific, the so-called South Pacific. This region of the Pacific Ocean includes the Polynesian Islands as well as parts of Melanesia and Micronesia.
