population

Kiribati has a population from the 1990 census of 72,298. The distribution of the population is as follows:

Total population of the Gilberts was 67,471, over 93 percent of the entire country's population. Many of those in the Gilberts, 25,154, reside near the capital of Bairiki on the southern portion of the island of Tarawa. The South Tarawa population represents over 37 percent of the overall citizenry.

Only one of the eight Phoenix islands had a permanent population at the time of the census. Kanton, also called Canton Island or Abariringa, has a population of only 45 people. Kanton is also the largest of the Phoenix islands. To relieve overcrowding in the Gilberts, efforts were made in the 1930's to move some of the I-Kiribati to the Phoenix Islands, but had to be dropped because of a lack of fresh water.

At the time of the 1990 census, the five southernmost Line Islands — Malden, Starbuck, Vostok, Caroline (now Millennium) and Flint — were uninhabited. The other three atolls, Teraina, Tebuaeran and Kiritimati, had a combined population of 4,782. Much of the populace of Teraina and Tebuaeran were relocated there from the Gilberts in a five-year program begun in 1988. Over 53 percent of the Line Islands inhabitants reside on Kiritimati Atoll.

The Kiribati population by island is depicted in Table 2 in the Appendix.

introduction | history | geography | land | population | economy
government and politics | people | outlook | conclusion | references | appendix

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