[HIGHLIGHTS] Did you know ? This Oceanian country is the only one in the world not to have an official capital

Nauru is a small island state in the Pacific Ocean, located 42 km south of the equator. It is the only state not to have an official capital.

The small size of the island, as well as the absence of a town to speak of, partly explain this specificity. Nauru has one of the highest densities in the region, with 644 inhabitants per km². The country, long exploited for its phosphate resources, gained independence in 1968, but has never determined an officialCapital. The island, also the victim of a major economic and environmental crisis, has been nicknamed “the country that ate itself”   ‘NaurU’ is the name of the small island territory, discovered in 1798 by British captain John Fearn. The British, for example, called it Pleasant Island, while the Germans nicknamed it Nawodo or Onawero. The current name of NaurU is retained by Europeans and North Americans, and the inhabitants use that of Naoero.