Nauru

Nauru is one small island in the Pacific Ocean.

Its official name is now Naoero. People speak Nauruan and English. There are no rivers.

Nauru is a single small island in the Pacific Ocean, just south of the Equator. It covers just 21 square kilometers, and paved roads link all its villages. In 2026 the government made Naoero, the island's name in the Nauruan language, the country's official name.

Nauruan is the national language, and English is used in business and government. The 2021 census counted 11,680 people. The photo shows the coral reef and rock pinnacles on Nauru's shore.

Britannica describes Nauru as a single island of 21 km² that rises abruptly from the ocean, with no harbors or protected anchorages; it lists it as the world's third smallest country. In 2026 the government officially changed the country's name from Nauru to Naoero, saying it restored the island's indigenous name.

The Nauru Bureau of Statistics' 2021 census counted 11,680 people (5,893 male, 5,787 female). Nauruan (dorerin Naoero) is the national language, English is the language of business and government, and the currency is the Australian dollar. There is no official capital; government offices are in Yaren district.

Most people live near the coast.

The government works in Yaren. A small village called Buada sits by a lagoon in the middle.

Nauru has no official capital, but the government offices and the island's only airport are in Yaren district on the south coast. Most people live in a narrow green belt around the coast. The only village inland is Buada, beside the shallow Buada Lagoon.

There are no natural harbors or wharves, so big ships wait offshore while barges carry people and goods to a small human-made anchorage. A paved road links all the villages.

Settlement is dispersed along the coastal belt, with one small inland village, Buada, near the lagoon. Government offices, the Parliament building and the sole airport are in Yaren district. Because there are no wharves or natural harbors, passengers and cargo are shuttled by barge between oceangoing ships and a small artificial anchorage, and most travel is by air; a national airline was launched in 1970.

Virtually all food, water and manufactured goods are imported, nine-tenths from Australia. Basic education and health care are free for citizens, and schooling is compulsory from age 6 to 16; students have traditionally gone abroad, mainly to Australia, for higher education.

A thin green strip goes all around the island.

In the middle is a high, rocky plateau. The island's own fresh water comes only from rain.

A narrow, fertile strip of land runs around the island. Inland, coral cliffs rise to a flat plateau about 30 meters above the sea; the highest point is about 65 meters. The plateau is made mostly of phosphate rock. Mining it has left pointed pinnacles of limestone that make the land look like another planet.

It is hot, about 28 °C in the daytime, cooled by sea breezes. About 2,000 millimeters of rain falls in a year, but it changes a lot and long droughts happen. With no rivers or streams, people collect rain from roofs and bring water in by ship.

A fairly fertile but narrow belt encircles the island and the shallow Buada Lagoon. Inland, coral cliffs rise to a plateau about 30 m above sea level, highest at about 65 m (Britannica; Wikidata gives Command Ridge 71 m). The plateau is largely rock phosphate leached from guano; the deposit covers more than two-thirds of the island, and extraction has left irregular limestone pinnacles with a 'forbidding, otherworldly appearance'.

Daytime temperatures are about 28 °C. Rainfall averages about 2,000 mm but is extremely variable, with prolonged droughts. There are no rivers or streams: the only local water is from roof catchments, and water has been imported as ballast on ships returning for phosphate. Soils are poor and porous, limiting cultivation to the coastal belt and lagoon fringe.

Birds stop on Nauru on their long journeys.

Coconut palms and pandanus trees grow by the coast. Coral reefs ring the shore.

Nauru is a favorite resting place for migrating birds. Before people brought them, there were no mammals on the island at all: rats, mice, cats, dogs and pigs all came later, and so did chickens.

Coconut palms, pandanus, bananas and pineapples grow on the coastal strip, and the island has many kinds of plants and trees. A coral reef surrounds the island, and rock pinnacles stand on its shore, as in the photo, and the country's waters stretch 320 kilometers out to sea.

Britannica notes that Nauru is a favorite stopover for migratory birds, that it had no mammals until rats, mice, cats, dogs and pigs were imported, and that chickens were introduced. Despite poor soils, the land supports a great variety of plants and trees; subsistence crops are mainly coconut palms, pandanus, bananas, pineapple and some vegetables, not enough to feed the population.

A fringing reef surrounds the island 100 to 200 m offshore, and coral pinnacles rise from the rubble platform along parts of the shore, as in the photo (South and Yen, Micronesica, 1992). Nauru's exclusive economic zone extends 200 nautical miles (about 320 km) offshore, and licenses sold to foreign fishing fleets have brought a steady income since the 1990s.

Most people on the island are Nauruans.

They speak their own language, Nauruan. Long ago there were 12 family groups.

Most people are dei-Naoero, called Nauruans in English. Smaller groups come from Kiribati, Tuvalu, Australia, New Zealand and China. When Europeans arrived, island society was made up of 12 family groups, each with a chief, and family passed down through mothers.

The Nauruan language is spoken only here, and UNESCO classes it as severely endangered. English is widely spoken. Most people are Christian.

Most residents are indigenous dei-Naoero, with small I-Kiribati, Australian, New Zealand, Chinese and Tuvaluan communities; many Chinese and Tuvaluans came as phosphate workers. By the 18th century society consisted of 12 matrilineal kinship groups, each with a chief.

Nauruan (dorerin Naoero) is classified by UNESCO as severely endangered; no adequate written grammar exists, and its relationship to other Micronesian languages is not well understood. Missionaries arrived late, the first Protestant in 1899 and the first Catholic three years later; today more than half the population is Protestant, mostly in the Nauru Congregational Church, and a third Roman Catholic. Britannica considers Nauru one of the most Westernized countries in the South Pacific.