History of Kiribati

The islands which now form the Republic of Kiribati have been inhabited variously. The Gilbert Islands may have been inhabited for three or four millennia, and certainly for several hundred years. The Phoenix and Line islands, in contrast, seem to have only been inhabited intermittently, because any intended long-lived human inhabitations have been thwarted by droughts and such like. Regarding the Gilberts, the initial Austronesian peoples’ population, which remains the overwhelming majority today, was visited by Polynesian and Melanesian invaders before the first European sailors visited the islands in the 17th century. For much of the subsequent period, the islands were ruled as part of the British Empire. The country gained its independence in 1979 and has since been known as Kiribati.