Kiribati (pronounced kee-ree-bas) is a far-flung nation of islands in the Pacific that straddles the Equator. It also straddled the international date line until Kiribati passed legislation moving it to the country's eastern border. Moving the date line allowed Kiribati to become the first nation to greet the coming of the new millennium in 2001.

Kiribati is approximately halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Its thirty-three coral atolls stretch 3,870 kilometers (2,360 miles) across, from the easternmost of the Line Islands (Caroline) to its westernmost island (Banaba), and 2,050 kilometers (1,250 miles) from north to south. The land area of Kiribati is only 719 square kilometers (266 square miles), out of a total of about 3.3 million kilometers (1.3 million square miles) of national territory, so most of the country's area is ocean. The capital of Kiribati is Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands group. Kiribati's estimated population in 2003 was 98,549. Historically, Kiribati derived much of its national income from...