Kiribati Hotels and Resorts

Spanish explorer de Quiros' hectic Pacific schedule brought him to Butaritari in 1606, and he named it Buen Viaje (Nice Trip). Archaeological evidence indicates that ancestors of the people who stood on the shore singing 'Olé olé olé' to de Quiros were Austronesians, and they'd arrived in the islands at least 2000 years earlier. Tongans and Fijians invaded some time around the 14th century AD, and intermarriage between groups gave the population a reasonably homogenous appearance by the early 19th century.

A particularly dirty piece of colonial high jinks took place on 8 April 1841, when 80 officers and enlisted men from the USS Peacock let themselves loose on Utiroa village, Tabiteuea Island. They believed the locals had killed one of their number the day before and, in the best traditions of the Seventh Cavalry, they burned 300 houses and left the community meeting house, or maneaba, 'entirely in ashes' as punishment. The 'official' figure of islander dead was only 12, but the commander, presumably pleased with his day's work, described their effort as a 'salutary lesson'. It's not clear from the record whether the islanders learned their lesson and suddenly started liking the invaders.

More Europeans started dropping by, and all the islands had made it onto European charts by 1826. The famous Russian hydrographer Krusenstern named the Gilbert Islands in the 1820s, and from then till the 1870s British and American whalers hunting sperm whales were the most frequent visitors. There was a little give and take: some seamen deserted and spent their days dancing under coconut trees, and some of the islanders traded places for a life of scurvy, seasickness and spilled sperm whale gizzards on the high seas. Coconut oil and then copra became the main items of trade later in the century, along with 'blackbirding' - kidnapping into slavery by Peruvian, British, Australian and other slave ships. Most of the islanders spirited off were put to work in Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaii and Central America.

Missionaries set up shop in the 1850s and began saving 'Gilbertese' souls by banning their naughty dances and telling them to stop fornicating and indulging in other forms of pleasure. The Americans and British were interested in the region (the Reverend Hiram Bingham was a Yankee and the first missionary to live there), but by 1917 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions agreed to withdraw in the face of successful proselytising by the London Missionary Society and aggressive land grabs by the Crown.

In 1892 the Brits proclaimed the group a British protectorate, and established headquarters at Tarawa four years later. They annexed Banaba in 1900 after they discovered phosphate there, and proceeded to mine the trots out of the island. Because Banaba was eventually ruined (the topsoil was spread over fields in Australia and New Zealand), Banabans were moved at the end of WWII to Rabi Island in Fiji, where the main community still resides.

By early 1916 the British had legitimised their land grab of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands by the all-important Order-in-Council and by getting local chiefs to sign on the dotted line. Other islands joined the gang, including Teraina, Tabuaeran, Kiritimati (or Christmas in English, where Captain James Cook ate his steamed pudding on Christmas Day), the Tokelau Group (which went to New Zealand administrators in 1925) and Banaba. The uninhabited Phoenix Islands, two of which were administered jointly with the USA, joined the list in 1937. Other islands in present-day Kiribati were exploited by foreign companies for phosphate or coconut products, but they eventually came into the fold.

Once the Japanese let loose the seagulls of war in the Pacific, Kiribati would inevitably be drawn in. The Japanese bombed Banaba then landed on Tarawa and Butaritari shortly after they attacked Pearl Harbour, but by November 1943 the Americans had thrown them out of most of present-day Kiribati in a series of take-no-prisoners pitched battles. After Banaba was reoccupied, the Japanese were found to have massacred all but one man of the imported labour force on receiving news of the end of the war. A military tribunal later gave the death sentence to the COs. The British gave the I-Kiribati another slap in the face in 1957 and 1962 when they detonated hydrogen bombs near Kiritimati (Christmas) Island, as part of their atmospheric testing at the giddy heights of the Cold War.

Islanders were given an 'advisory' role in their own government in 1963, and granted full independence on 12 July 1979. Two months later the USA relinquished all claims made under their Guano Act of 1856 to 14 islands in the Line and Phoenix groups. The Banabans initiated a suit for compensation in the British High Court in 1975 over damage to their homeland caused by phosphate mining, claiming more than UK£7 million for back royalties. They also demanded independence from Kiribati. They were paid the grand sum of US$9.04 million in compensation, and the constitution ensures Banabans a seat in the House of Assembly and the return of land to those dispossessed by phosphate mining. But it did not offer them their independence.

In 1999, Kiribati became a member of the United Nations. In an effort to attract tourism, one of the islands was renamed Millennium Island and vied with the Chatham Islands for the honour of being the first to greet the first dawn of the new millennium. In 2000, a UN Development Program report concluded that AIDS rates in the nation were on a par with some African nations.

In recent years five of the Phoenix Islands have been earmarked for residential development with a grant from the Asian Development Bank. The islands will be settled from overpopulated South Tarawa. Kiribati is one of a number of Pacific island-nations whose very existence is threatened by climate change and the resultant rise in sea levels. So worried is the government about the country's future that it announced its intention in 2002 to take the US to court for its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, claiming that rising sea levels had already submerged two of its uninhabited coral reefs.

A remote country of 33 scattered coral atolls, Kiribati has few natural resources. Commercially viable phosphate deposits were exhausted at the time of independence from the UK in 1979. Copra and fish now represent the bulk of production and exports. The economy has fluctuated widely in recent years. Economic development is constrained by a shortage of skilled workers, weak infrastructure, and remoteness from international markets. Tourism provides more than one-fifth of GDP. The financial sector is at an early stage of development as is the expansion of private sector initiatives. Foreign financial aid from UK, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and China equals 25%-50% of GDP. Remittances from workers abroad account for more than $5 million each year.

RELIGION Christianity was first introduced in the 1850s by American Protestant missionaries. Today about 52 per cent of the people of Kiribati are Catholic, and 40 per cent are Congregational Protestant. Catholicism is more prominent in the north. It was introduced in 1880 by two I-Kirbati who had become Catholic whilst working in Tahiti. Other Christian faiths with a strong presence include Seventh-Day Adventist, the Church of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). The Baha’i faith also has followers in Kiribati. Before Christianity, te maka (“the power” or “the magic”) was the prevalent belief system. It included the worship of Nareau (the Creator), the use of charms and spells, and a belief in spirits and ghosts. While no longer practised on a large scale, it is still followed by some families.

There are not many organised activities on Kiribati, so your best bet is to arrange your own diving or game fishing early. The underwater visibility is generally excellent and the underwater life is wild, whether you want to view it through a diving mask or on the end of a hook. Several companies hire gear and boats, and at least one large operation is based on South Tarawa. The surfing is reportedly great on Tabuaeran Island.

After each general election, the new Maneaba nominates at least three but not more than four of its members to stand as candidates for president, locally referred to as "His Excellency Te Beretitenti." The voting public then elects the president from among these candidates. A cabinet of up to 10 members is appointed by the president from among the members of the Maneaba. Although popularly elected, the president can be deposed by a majority vote in Parliament. In this case, a new election for President must be held. A person can serve as president for only three terms, no matter how short each term is. As a result of this provision, former Presidents Tabai and Tito are constitutionally forbidden from serving as president again.

The judicial system consists of the High Court, a court of appeal, and magistrates' courts. All judicial appointments are made by the president.

Kiribati's territorial waters are vast (nearly the size of Argentina and Chile combined), but the stuff where the coconuts grow is only a little larger than New York City. Kiribati comprises three island groups: the Gilbert, Line (Northern and Southern) and Phoenix Islands. They sit bang smack over the equator, with Tuvalu to the south, the Marshall Islands to the north-west and Nauru out west. The 34 islands are all low lying atolls apart from the mine-scarred wasteland of Banaba, which at its highest point hits 87m (285ft). Christmas Island in the Line Islands is the biggest coral atoll in the world, but none of the islands support much vegetation because soil is scarce. Although there are no rivers, most islands have a freshwater lagoon.

auna is limited to the Polynesian rat, plentiful sea birds and a couple of species of lizard. Sea life is far more diverse, and the stunning coral reefs fringing most of the islands harbour a huge variety of fish. Seaside scrub is common, mangroves and pandanus grow on some islands, and others support woodland rich in epiphytes and ferns. Coconuts have been planted widely where they don't occur naturally, and several areas are protected or 'closed'. The nature reserves on Malden Island, Phoenix Island and Starbuck Island are larger than 1000 hectares (2470 acres). The gravest threat to protected areas, and to the whole country, is a possible rise in sea levels owing to global warming. Even if the shorelines don't erode or the land doesn't go under, freshwater aquifers could still become salinised.

From November to February the heat can be oppressive and the rains belt down, but for the rest of the year the climate is moderated by trade winds (it's called 'equatorial maritime', if you're into climatology). The rainfall varies from one island group to another, with those in the far north receiving about 3m (118in) annually, while further to the south, such as on Banaba, there can get droughts. Fortunately, tropical cyclones generally tend to pass Kiribati by.