Nauru is the only country in the world without an official capital city. The government offices of the tiny Pacific island nation are located in the Yaren District. Located in the Pacific Ocean, the island is the world’s second-smallest republic. With an estimated population of 9,400, Nauru is the second smallest country in the world by population after the Vatican City. The country is so obscure such that its national flag is a map showing people how to find the place – it features a horizontal line representing the Equator with a white star right beneath it indicating where Nauru lies.
Some sources call “Yaren” the capital of Nauru, but that’s not true. In fact, the island has no official capital city, and in fact it doesn’t really have any cities at all. The Yaren District is just an area on the island’s southern shore where most of its important buildings are located. That’s where you’ll find Parliament House, the embassies of the only two nations that have an ambassador to Nauru (Taiwan and Australia), and the Nauru International Airport. Nauru is so small that its airport runway stretches almost all the way across the island, and its official airline used to land its only jet there until 2005, when the plane was repossessed by Australian creditors.
That kind of thing sums up Nauru’s recent history pretty well, unfortunately. At the time of its 1968 independence, Nauru was the richest country on earth, due to valuable deposits of phosphates formed from centuries of bird guano. But the economy collapsed when the bird-poop ran out. Today the unemployment rate sits at 90 percent, and so does the obesity rate, due to unhealthy Western foods that became popular during the boom years.
Credit : Conde Nast Traveler
Picture Credit : Google
