Introducing Nauru
The people of the tiny, potato-shaped Republic of Nauru were once among the world's richest. Formerly known as Pleasant Island (and now abbreviated, more prosaically, as RON), Nauru supplied Australia with abundant fertiliser for almost a century after vast phosphate deposits were discovered in 1900. By 2005, in an abrupt reversal of fortune, Nauru was a nearly failed state with an uncertain future, dependent on injections of cash from other countries to keep afloat.
Nauruans are doing it tough. Freight deliveries are rare, and employment is scarcer still. Health care is basic at best. It's a far cry from the heady phosphate-rich days of the 1970s and '80s, and many local people have become reticent in their dealings with visitors.
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Beach of Anibare Bay.
- Philip Game
- Lonely Planet photographer
