Kiribati 🇰🇮

Kiribati is a country in Oceania with a population of 131,232. Its capital is Tarawa. The official currency is AUD, and the main languages are English, Gilbertese.

Quick facts

Capital: Tarawa
Continent: Oceania
Population: 131,232
Area: 811 km²
Density: 162 people per km²
Currency: AUD
Languages: English, Gilbertese
ISO code: KI

Where Kiribati sits

Kiribati 🇰🇮 is one of 14 countries in Oceania, with its capital at Tarawa. It covers 811 square kilometres — 174th in the world — and is home to about 131,232 people, 180th globally.

The countries it shares a continent with include Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Fiji and Solomon Islands. If you are learning geography region by region — which works far better than alphabetically, because memory for places is spatial — those are the ones to learn alongside it.

How Kiribati compares

Raw figures are hard to hold on their own, so it helps to anchor them. In population, Kiribati sits closest to Grenada and Micronesia. In land area, its nearest counterparts are Bahrain and Dominica.

At 162 people per square kilometre it is about 2.7 times the world average of 59.4. It ranks higher by area than by population, so it is more spacious than its population alone suggests.

English is an official language in 58 countries here, among them Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas and Barbados, and 53 others. The AUD is shared with 3 other countries, including Australia, Nauru and Tuvalu.

To see Kiribati next to every other country, sort the country rankings by population, area or density; its currency and languages are listed alongside every other country's in world currencies and world languages.

How to remember Kiribati

Say it 'KEER-ee-bass': in Gilbertese 'ti' sounds like 's', and the name is the local spelling of 'Gilberts', the old name of the islands. The capital is Tarawa, an atoll, where government offices are on South Tarawa.

The flag of Kiribati: red, gold, blue and white

🇰🇮 The flag is a red upper half with a gold frigatebird flying over a rising gold sun, and blue and white wavy stripes below. The three white waves stand for the Pacific Ocean and the three island groups (Gilbert, Phoenix and Line), the 17 rays of the sun for the 16 Gilbert Islands and Banaba, and the frigatebird for authority and freedom.

Region and neighbours

Kiribati is an island country in the central Pacific Ocean, made up of 33 coral atolls and islands spread across a huge area of ocean. As an island country it has no land neighbours.

Three facts about Kiribati

Kiribati is the only country with land in all four hemispheres, north, south, east and west.
Its Line Islands are among the first places on Earth to start each new day, in the UTC+14 time zone.
Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in Kiribati is the largest coral atoll in the world by land area.

Sources: Wikipedia: Kiribati, Wikipedia: Flag of Kiribati, Wikipedia: South Tarawa, CIA World Factbook.

Quiz yourself on Kiribati

Oceania capitals quiz — match Kiribati to Tarawa
Oceania flags quiz — spot the Kiribati flag among its neighbours
Island nations quiz — Kiribati is an island country

Quizzes that include Kiribati

Three angles are worth covering for any country — where it is, what its flag looks like, and what its capital is. For Kiribati those are:

Oceania map quiz — place it on a blank map
Oceania flags quiz — identify its flag among its neighbours
Oceania capitals quiz — match it to Tarawa
Kiribati capital quiz — five quick questions starting with Kiribati
Daily Map Challenge — five countries to find on a blank world map, the same five for everyone each day

Doing all three for one continent before moving on is far more efficient than learning flags globally, then capitals globally, then the map.

Nearby countries

Australia 🇦🇺 — capital Canberra
Fiji 🇫🇯 — capital Suva
Marshall Islands 🇲🇭 — capital Majuro
Micronesia 🇫🇲 — capital Palikir
Nauru 🇳🇷 — capital Yaren
New Zealand 🇳🇿 — capital Wellington
Palau 🇵🇼 — capital Ngerulmud
Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬 — capital Port Moresby
Samoa 🇼🇸 — capital Apia
Solomon Islands 🇸🇧 — capital Honiara
Tonga 🇹🇴 — capital Nukuʻalofa
Tuvalu 🇹🇻 — capital Funafuti

Frequently asked questions

What are the colours of the Kiribati flag?

The flag of Kiribati is a red upper half with a gold frigatebird flying over a rising gold sun, and blue and white wavy stripes below. The three white waves stand for the Pacific Ocean and the three island groups (Gilbert, Phoenix and Line), the 17 rays of the sun for the 16 Gilbert Islands and Banaba, and the frigatebird for authority and freedom.

Which countries border Kiribati?

None. Kiribati is an island country in the central Pacific Ocean, made up of 33 coral atolls and islands spread across a huge area of ocean, so it has no land borders with other countries.