Nauru, whose full name is the Republic of Nauru, is an island nation located in the Micronesia Archipelago in the South Pacific. With an area of 21.3 square kilometers, Nauru is the third smallest country in the world by land area, only larger than the Vatican and Monaco. With a population of about 11,000 people, Nauru is the third least populous country in the world, with just over the Vatican and Tuvalu.
Nauru's indigenous people are Micronesians and Polynesians, and in the late 18th century, New Zealanders discovered Nauru while sailing at sea, when the island was inhabited by many indigenous people. In 1798, British captain John Fein arrived in Nauru with the Hunter and named the island "Lovely Island", thus opening the history of western exchanges with Nauru. Nauru was annexed by the German Empire in 1888, and after Germany's defeat in World War I, Nauru was under the trusteeship of the League of Nations and de facto administered by Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain. Nauru was occupied by Japan during World War II, and after the war Nauru was again entrusted with United Nations trusteeship and again entrusted to Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom until Nauru officially gained independence in 1968.
In the early days of german colonization, no valuable resources were found on the island of Nauru. In 1900, employees of the British Phosphate Mine Company accidentally discovered that 80% of the entire island of Nauru was covered with phosphate, which changed the fate of Nauru. Phosphate is one of the natural ingredients of almost all foods and is widely used in food processing as an important food ingredient and functional additive. In 1907, the German Pacific Phosphate Company began to mine phosphate mines on the island, after 1919 by the British Phosphate Commission responsible for mining, after the independence of Nauru in 1968, relying on the huge wealth brought by the extraction of phosphate rock exports, Nauru's per capita income once ranked among the world's top, the Nauru government said that its per capita income is the highest among all sovereign income countries.
However, the Nauruan government did not make full use of this wealth, and in the 1990s, with the depletion of phosphate reserves and the deterioration of the environment caused by mining, coupled with the long-term high welfare of providing free medical education to the people, the Nauru government began to make ends meet. In order to earn more revenue, nauru became a global tax haven and money laundering center in the early 2000s. With the international community banning illegal financial practices in Nauru, Nauru has no choice but to turn to Australia for assistance, and the two sides signed an agreement to provide $30 million a year to Nauru. Heavily dependent on Australian aid, Nauru is also considered a vassal state of Australia by the world, Nauru does not have its own army, and even national defense is the responsibility of Australia.
According to the World Monetary Fund, Nauru's GDP in 2021 was $114 million, the second-to-last in the world, up from tuvalu's $45 million, with a GDP per capita of $10,125. The old Chinese saying "rich is not more than three generations", Nauru has been rich for only twenty years, and now it can only be sent to the fence, how high-profile it was once, how humble it is now, and the sustainable development of a country is the most important.