Tarawa Atoll
Encyclopedia

Tarawa is an atoll
Atoll
An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu OED...

 in the central Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, previously the capital of the former British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands
Gilbert and Ellice Islands
The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony from 1916 until 1 January 1976, when the islands were divided into two different colonies which became independent nations shortly after...

. It is the location of the capital of the Republic of Kiribati
Kiribati
Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

, South Tarawa
South Tarawa
South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati on Tarawa Atoll. The meaning of Teinainano is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll...

. The island is best known by outsiders as the site of the Battle of Tarawa
Battle of Tarawa
The Battle of Tarawa, code named Operation Galvanic, was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, largely fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region....

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Geography

Tarawa consists of around 24 larger islets, of which at least eight are inhabited. The largest islet (South Tarawa
South Tarawa
South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati on Tarawa Atoll. The meaning of Teinainano is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll...

) extends from Bonriki
Bonriki
Bonriki is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, part of the municipality of South Tarawa. Bonriki International Airport, the only international airport in Kiribati is located here....

 (southeast corner of the atoll) along the entire south side but Betio
Betio
Betio is an island and a town at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa in Kiribati. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located there.-Overview:...

 of the lagoon to Bairiki. A causeway, called the "Japanese causeway", now connects Bairiki to Betio. The largest town, Bikenibeu, and the only airport on Tarawa, Bonriki International Airport
Bonriki International Airport
-See also:* USAAF in the Central Pacific...

, are on South Tarawa. Tarawa is located at approximately latitude 1°22'47" N, longitude 173°09'06" E (Bonriki Airport).

Islets

  • Abanuea (submerged since 1999 due to changing ocean currents)
  • Abaokoro
    Abaokoro
    Abaokoro is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located about nine nautical miles from Tarawa....

  • Abatao
    Abatao
    Abatao is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati....

  • Bairiki
    South Tarawa
    South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati on Tarawa Atoll. The meaning of Teinainano is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll...

  • Betio
    Betio
    Betio is an island and a town at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa in Kiribati. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located there.-Overview:...

  • Bikeman Island
    Bikeman Island
    Bikeman Island is a submerged islet about a half-hour's canoe ride Southeast of Betio, Kiribati. Due to changing currents and the construction of a causeway between Betio and Bairiki, Bikeman has been submerged since the early 1990s. If one were to stand on Bikeman today, the water would reach up...

     (now submerged due to changing ocean currents)
  • Biketawa
    Biketawa
    Biketawa is one of the twenty-four small islets which comprises the atoll of Tarawa in the Republic of Kiribati. The capital of Kiribati, South Tarawa, is located on Tarawa....

  • Bonriki
    Bonriki
    Bonriki is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, part of the municipality of South Tarawa. Bonriki International Airport, the only international airport in Kiribati is located here....

  • Buariki
    Buariki (Tarawa)
    Buariki is an island in northern Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands of the Republic of Kiribati and was the site of the World War II Battle of Buariki.-Geography:...


Towns and villages

  • Abatao
    Abatao
    Abatao is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati....

  • Bairiki
    South Tarawa
    South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati on Tarawa Atoll. The meaning of Teinainano is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll...

  • Bikenibeu
    Bikenibeu
    Bikenibeu is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located about two nautical miles from Tarawa.-Landmarks:*Te Umanibong -Cultural Museum...

  • Bonriki
    Bonriki
    Bonriki is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, part of the municipality of South Tarawa. Bonriki International Airport, the only international airport in Kiribati is located here....

  • Buariki
    Buariki (Tarawa village)
    Buariki is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati....

  • Buota
    Buota
    Buota is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati....

  • Eita, Tarawa
    Eita, Kiribati
    Eita is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on an atoll; Utiroa is to its east and Terikiai to its north; Nuribenua, Tanaiang, and Te Kapuipui are to the west....

  • Marenanuka
    Marenanuka
    Marenanuka is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati....

  • Taborio
    Taborio
    Taborio is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati, where is situated the Immaculate Heart College, a Catholic school....


Demographics

The population as of 1990 was 28,802. The population is mostly Gilbertese (Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....

n). This probably exceeds the carrying capacity
Carrying capacity
The carrying capacity of a biological species in an environment is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment...

 of the islands and is maintained at its current level without starvation principally due to foreign aid, largely from the Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Overcrowding

Between 1995 and 2000, a prominent wave of immigrants from the outer islands settled in South Tarawa, causing an urban growth rate of 5.2%. Although the immigration plateaued during the five following years, the overcrowding persisted in several areas of the atoll. The overcrowding triggered the concern about unsustainable development in South Tarawa. Anote Tong's administration undertook different measures in order to ease the problem in the country's main urban center, including the buildings of centers to spread out around the islands and relieve the atoll from the overcrowding issue.

Administration

Tarawa atoll has three administrative subdivisions:
  • Teinainano Urban Council (or TUC), from Bairiki to Bonriki, known in English as South Tarawa
    South Tarawa
    South Tarawa is the official capital of the Republic of Kiribati on Tarawa Atoll. The meaning of Teinainano is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll...

    , the capital of the Republic of Kiribati;
  • Betio Town Council (or BTC), on Betio Islet;
  • North Tarawa or Tarawa Ieta (all the islets on the east side north of Bonriki).


The main administrative center for the Republic of Kiribati is located at Bairiki on South Tarawa. The Parliament meets on Ambo islet and some administration offices are on Betio Islet and in Bikenibeu and one is located on Kiritimati
Kiritimati
Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands, and part of the Republic of Kiribati....

.

History


Thomas Gilbert
Thomas Gilbert (captain)
Thomas Gilbert was an 18th century British mariner.Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall were the captains of two East India Company vessels, the Charlotte and the Scarborough, returning from carrying convicts to Botany Bay in 1788, when they sailed through the Gilbert Islands and described Aranuka,...

, captain of the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 vessel Charlotte
Charlotte (ship)
The Charlotte was a First Fleet transport ship of 335 tons, built on the River Thames in 1787. She was a light sailer, and had to be towed down the English Channel for the first few days of the voyage...

, was the first European to describe Tarawa, arriving on June 20, 1788. Gilbert's 1788 sketches survive to the present.

Sir Arthur Grimble
Arthur Grimble
Sir Arthur Francis Grimble was a British Civil Servant and writer.After joining the Colonial Office, he became a cadet administrative officer in the Gilberts and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926.Specialist in the myths and oral traditions of Kiribati...

 was a cadet administrative officer based at Tarawa (1913-1919);. and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926.

During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Tarawa was occupied by the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese, and beginning on November 20, 1943 it was the scene of the bloody Battle of Tarawa
Battle of Tarawa
The Battle of Tarawa, code named Operation Galvanic, was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, largely fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region....

. On that day United States Marines landed on Tarawa and suffered heavy losses from Japanese soldiers occupying entrenched positions on the atoll. The Marines secured the island after 76 hours of intense fighting with around 6,000 dead in total from both sides.

Economy

Betio
Betio
Betio is an island and a town at the extreme southwest of South Tarawa in Kiribati. The main port of Tarawa Atoll is located there.-Overview:...

 Islet includes the main port through which copra
Copra
Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

 and pearl
Pearl
A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other...

 shell are exported.
S.P.M.S, South Pacific Marine Service is a crewing agency in Tarawa. Currently there are more than 950 seamen working for S.P.M.S worldwide.

The currency of Kiribati
Kiribati
Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

 is the Australian dollar
Australian dollar
The Australian dollar is the currency of the Commonwealth of Australia, including Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, and Norfolk Island, as well as the independent Pacific Island states of Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu...

.

Literature

  • A Pattern of Islands by Sir Arthur Grimble, John Murray & Co, London, 1952; republished 2011 by Eland, London, ISBN 978-1906011-45-1
  • Return to the Islands by Sir Arthur Grimble, John Murray & Co, London, 1957

Trivia

  • The book The Sex Lives of Cannibals
    The Sex Lives of Cannibals
    The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific is a 2004 travelogue by author J. Maarten Troost describing the two years he and his girlfriend spent living on the Tarawa atoll in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati...

    by J. Maarten Troost
    J. Maarten Troost
    J. Maarten Troost is the author of three books about his experiences in the Pacific Islands and 3-month trip to China. Troost writes about the part of his life spent in the South Pacific in Getting Stoned with Savages and The Sex Lives of Cannibals -- and one on a trip to China: Lost on Planet...

     is a rather humorous account of the author's two years living on Tarawa.
  • Tarawa is the site of the 1944 Pulitzer Prize
    Pulitzer Prize
    The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

     winning photograph by Frank Filan, depicting a destroyed bunker
    Bunker
    A military bunker is a hardened shelter, often buried partly or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks...

    .
  • The book Return to Mars
    Return to Mars
    Return to Mars is a science fiction novel by Ben Bova. This novel is part of the Grand Tour series of novels. It was first published in 1999 and is a sequel to Ben Bova's novel Mars.-Plot summary:...

    by Ben Bova
    Ben Bova
    Benjamin William Bova is an American science-fiction author and editor. He is the recipient of six Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor for his work at Analog Science Fiction in the 1970's.-Personal life:...

     uses Tarawa as the mission control for an expedition to Mars.
  • The Far Reaches, a book of historical fiction by Homer Hickam
    Homer Hickam
    Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. is an American author, Vietnam veteran, and a former NASA engineer. His autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, was a #1 New York Times Best Seller, is studied in many American and international school systems, and was the basis for the popular film October Sky...

    , describes the Battle of Tarawa
    Battle of Tarawa
    The Battle of Tarawa, code named Operation Galvanic, was a battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II, largely fought from November 20 to November 23, 1943. It was the first American offensive in the critical central Pacific region....

     (ISBN 0-312-334753).
  • A British drama film Pacific Destiny
    Pacific Destiny
    Pacific Destiny is a 1956 British drama film directed by Wolf Rilla and starring Denholm Elliott, Susan Stephen and Michael Horden. In the colonial era, a young British couple win the respect of the inhabitants of a South Pacific island. It was based on the memoirs of Sir Arthur Grimble.-Cast:*...

     based on the book A Pattern Of Islands
    A Pattern of Islands
    A Pattern Of Islands is a memoir first published in 1952 by Sir Arthur Grimble, recounting his time in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands as a cadet officer and Resident Commissioner in the 1920s...

     was made in 1956.

Memorial

  • USS Tarawa
    USS Tarawa (LHA-1)
    USS Tarawa is a United States Navy amphibious assault ship, the lead ship of her class, and the second ship to be named for Tarawa Atoll, site of a Marine landing during World War II. The first Tarawa was the...

     is the name of the first LHA
    LHA (hull classification symbol)
    thumb|right|300px|USS Tarawa LHA, for Landing Helicopter Assault, is the US Navy hull classification symbol for the general purpose helicopter-carrying amphibious assault ships of the Tarawa and the future America classes. They are used to transport Fleet Marine Force personnel and equipment while...

    -class amphibious assault ship.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK