Kiribati (/ˌkɪrɪˈbæs, -ˈbɑːti/), officially the Republic of Kiribati (Gilbertese: [Ribaberiki] Kiribati), is an island country in Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is over 119,000 (2020), more than half of whom live on Tarawa atoll. The state comprises 32 atolls and one remote raised coral island, Banaba. There is a total land area of 811 square kilometres (313 square miles) dispersed over 3.5 million km2 (1.4 million sq mi) of ocean. Their spread straddles the equator and the 180th meridian, although the International Date Line goes around Kiribati and swings far to the east, almost reaching the 150° W meridian. This brings Kiribati's easternmost islands, the southern Line Islands south of Hawaii, into the same day as the Gilbert Islands and places them in the most advanced time zone on Earth: UTC+14. Kiribati is the only country in the world to be situated in all four cardinal hemispheres. (Source: Wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA)