Gilbert Islands

Gilbert Islands
Waters	Pacific Ocean
Geographical location	0 ° 0 ′  S , 174 ° 0 ′  E Coordinates: 0 ° 0 ′  S , 174 ° 0 ′  E
Number of islands	16 atolls
Main island	Tarawa
Total land area	281.10 km²
Residents	99,365 (2015)
The atolls of the Gilbert Islands

The Gilbert Islands (also known as Gilberts for short ; Kiribati : Tungaru ; formerly known as Kingsmill Islands ) are a chain of 16 atolls in the Pacific that belong to the island state of Kiribati . The most populous and important atoll is Tarawa , on which the capital South Tarawa is located on the island of Bairiki .

The name Gilbert Islands is historically in use for today's Kiribati, the part of the Gilberts of the former protectorate of the Gilbert and Ellic Islands , today for the administrative area, the unit, of the Gilbert Islands, which is made up of the districts of Northern Gilbert Islands (Northern Gilberts) and Tarawa , Central Gilbert Islands (Central Gilberts) and Southern Gilbert Islands (Southern Gilberts) composed.

The population of the Gilbert Islands unit was 99,365 people according to the 2015 census.

For other parts of Kiribati not covered here:

→ Main articles : Banaba , Phoenix Islands  and Line Islands

geography

The atolls of the Gilbert Islands are arranged in a north-south direction:

Atolls and islands of the Gilbert Islands archipelago

Atoll / island	Residents 2015	Area in km²	Islands ( islets )	main place	places	Former district
Makin	1,990	07.86	06th	Makin	02	Northern Gilberts
Butaritari	3.224	13.46	13	Temanokunuea	11
Marakei	2,799	14.10	01	Rawannawi	08th
Abaiang	5,568	17.48	04+	Taburao	18th
Tarawa * North Tarawa * South Tarawa * Betio	63,017 6,629 39,058 17,330	31 15 14 2	9+	Buota Bairiki (capital) -	30 14 15 01	Tarawa
Maiana	1,982	16.72	09	Tebangetua	12	Central Gilberts
Abemama	3,262	27.73	08th	Kariatebike	13
Kuria	1,046	15.48	02	Buariki	06th
Aranuka	1,125	11.61	04th	Takaeang	03
Nonouti	2,743	19.85	12	Teuabu	09
Tabiteuea * Tabiteuea North * Tabiteuea South	5,261 3,955 1,306	37.63 25.78 11.85	11+ 12+	Utiroa Buariki	18 0 12 6	Southern Gilberts
Beru	2,051	17.65	01	Taubukinberu	09
Nikunau	1,789	19.08	01	Rungata	06th
Onotoa	1,393	15.62	03+	Buariki	07th
Tamana	1.104	04.73	01	Bakaka	03
Arorae	1.011	09.48	01	Roreti	02

history

The Gilbert Islands were inhabited by Micronesians for several centuries before they were discovered by the first Europeans.

In 1606 Pedro Fernández de Quirós sighted the Makin / Butaritari group. The Englishman John Byron sighted more of the Gilbert Islands on the Dolphin on his circumnavigation of the world in 1764 . The real discoverers are generally the captains Thomas Gilbert of the Charlotte and John Marshall of the Scarborough , who sighted the atolls Aranuka, Kuria, Abaiang on June 17, 1788 and Tarawa, which was called Kingsmill, on June 20, 1788, without, however, watching land. They were given the name Gilbert Islands in honor of Thomas Gilbert around 1820 from Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern . The French captain Louis Isidore Duperrey , who circumnavigated the world on the Astrolabe from 1822 to 1825 , was the first to map the archipelago. Charles Wilkes of the United States Exploring Expedition (1832 to 1842) surveyed the islands, reefs and anchorages and applied the name of one of the islands, Kingsmill, now Tarawa, to the entire archipelago, published in his 1851 expedition report. It took a long time for the term Gilbert Islands to become the only term for the archipelago. Later the name Kingsmill was restricted to the part of the atolls south of Tarawa.

In 1892 the islands became part of the British Protectorate of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands . The proclamation was made by Captain Davis of the ship Royalist on May 27, 1892 on the island of Abemama. In 1916 the protectorate became the British colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony . During the Second World War , the Gilbert Islands were occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1943 (see Battle of the Gilbert Islands) . In 1971 she gained autonomy.

In 1978 the former Ellica Islands became an independent state under the new name Tuvalu , the Gilbert Islands followed a year later, and in 1979 merged with other islands to form the independent island state of Kiribati .

literature

Discovery story

• Henry Evans Maude : The Gilbert Islands observed. A source book of European contacts with, and observations of, the Gilbert Islands and the Gilbertese, from 1537 to 1873. Compiled by HE Maude. Homa Press, Adelaide 2006.

Political history

• Harald Werber: Kiribati. Political and economic change during the protection period 1892–1916. LIT, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-50299-5 .
• Barrie Macdonald : Cinderellas of the Empire: Towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu . Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific), Suva 2001, ISBN 982-02-0335-X . (Note: standard work).
• Kiribati. Aspects of history. Tarawa 1979.
• Peter McQuarrie: Conflict in Kiribati: A History of the Second World War . Macmillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies (University of Canterbury), Christchurch 2000, ISBN 1-877175-21-8 .
• Howard Van Trease (Ed.): Atoll Politics: The Republic of Kiribati . Macmillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies (University of Canterbury) Christchurch, Institute of Pacific Studies (University of the South Pacific), Suva 1993, ISBN 982-02-0081-4 .

Cultural history

• Henry Evans Maude: The evolution of the Gilbertese boti. An ethnohistorical interpretation. Institute of Pacific Studies and Gilbert Islands Extension Center of the University of the South Pacific, Suva, 1977 (new edition from: Polynesian Society, Wellington 1963).
• Henry Evans Maude: The Gilbertese maneaba. The Institute of Pacific Studies and the Kiribati Extension Center of the University of the South Pacific, (Suva) 1980.
• Henry Evans Maude: Of islands and men. Studies in Pacific history. Oxford University Press, Melbourne / New York 1968 (Bibliography: pp. 373–397).
• Arthur Francis Grimble : Tungaru traditions. Writings on the atoll culture of the Gilbert Islands. Edited by HE Maude. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Victoria 1989 (bibliography pp. 357-375), ISBN 0-522-84386-7 . (Note: standard work).
• Arthur Francis Grimble: An anthology of Gilbertese oral tradition. From the Grimble papers and other collections. Translated by AF Grimble and Reid Cowell. Edited by HC and HE Maude. Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, Suva 1994, ISBN 0-646-17265-4 .
• Arthur Francis Grimble: A Pattern of Islands. New edition. Eland, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-906011-45-1 . (First edition: Murray, London 1952; US title: We chose the Islands ).
• Gerd Koch : The material culture of the Gilbert Islands. Nonouti, Tabiteuea, Onotoa. Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin 1965. (Note: standard work).

Ethnobotany

• Katharine Luomala : Ethnobotany of the Gilbert Islands. Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum , Honolulu 1953. ( Bernice P. Bishop Museum bulletin. 213).

language

• Ernest Sabatier : Dictionnaire Gilbertin-Français. Catholic Mission Press, Tabuiroa, Gilbert Islands 1952.
  • English edition: Gilbertese-English dictionary. Te tekitinari n taetae ni Kiribati ma n Ingiriti. Translated by Sister Mary Oliva. South Pacific Commission Publications Bureau, Sydney 1971.
• A Combined Kiribati-English Dictionary based on the works of Hiram Bingham, DD and Father Ernest Sabatier, MSC (translated by Sr. M. Oliva). Compiled by Stephen Trussel and Gordon W. Groves, University of Hawaii, 1978.
• Sheldon P. Harrison: Linguistic evidence for Polynesian influence in the Gilbert Islands. In: Language contact and change in the Austronesian world. Ed. by Tom Dutton, Darrell T. Tryon. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1994, ISBN 3-11-012786-5 , pp. 321-350 ( Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs. 77). Incomplete online preview .

Web links

Commons : Gilbert Islands  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• Labeled satellite image on oceandots.com ( Memento from December 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} 2015 Population and Housing Census. Volume 1. Bairiki, September 2016. (PDF; 2.8 MB). Accessed November 23, 2017.
2. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison : The Gilbert & Marshalls. A distinguished historian recalls the past of two recently captured Pacific groups. In: Life of May 22, 1944.
3. ↑ Full texts of the expedition reports from the digitized collections of the Smithsonian Institution (English).
4. ↑ Harald Werber: Kiribati. Political and economic change during the protection period 1892–1916. LIT, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-50299-5 , pp. 12-13.
5. ^ Edward Walter Dawson: The isles of the sea; being an entertaining narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Indian oceans, and embracing full and authentic accounts of the islands of Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, p. 14 ( online ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info : The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. )