Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
'' The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency. in the Micronesia region of the central Pacific Ocean. It comprises

North Tarawa North Tarawa or in Gilbertese ''Tarawa Ieta'', in the Republic of Kiribati, is the string of islets from Buariki at the northern tip of Tarawa atoll to Buota in the South, with a combined population of 6,629 . It is administratively separate ...

, which has 6,629 inhabitants and much in common with other more remote islands of the Gilberts group, and

South Tarawa South Tarawa ( gil, Tarawa Teinainano) is the capital and hub of the Republic of Kiribati and home to more than half of Kiribati's population. The South Tarawa population centre consists of all the small islets from Betio in the west to Bonriki ...

, which has 56,388 inhabitants , half of the country's total population. The atoll was the site of the

Battle of Tarawa The Battle of Tarawa was fought on 20–23 November 1943 between the United States and Japan at the Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands, and was part of Operation Galvanic, the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts. Nearly 6,400 Japanese, Koreans, an ...

during World War II.

Etymology

Tarawa is an old Gilbertese form for ''Te Rawa'', meaning "The Passage" (of the Lagoon), named for the unusual large ship channel to the lagoon. In the

popular etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...

based on

Kiribati mythology Micronesian mythology comprises the traditional belief systems of the people of Micronesia. There is no single belief system in the islands of Micronesia, as each island region has its own mythological beings. Region Micronesia is a region in th ...

Nareau Nareau (Gilbertese language, Gilbertese: "spider lord") is the creator deity in the mythology of the Gilbert Islands. From sand and water, Nareau created two primeval beings, Na Atibu and Nei Teukez. Together they brought forth several deities: Te I ...

, the God-spider, distinguished ''Karawa'', the sky, from ''Marawa'', the Sea, from ''Tarawa'', the land.

Geography

Tarawa has a large lagoon, in total area, and a wide reef. The lagoon is widely open to the ocean, with a large ship pass. Although naturally abundant in fish and

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater envir ...

of all kinds, marine resources are being strained by the large and growing population. Drought is frequent, but in normal years rainfall is sufficient to maintain

breadfruit Breadfruit (''Artocarpus altilis'') is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family (Moraceae) believed to be a domesticated descendant of ''Artocarpus camansi'' originating in New Guinea, the Maluku Islands, and the Philippi ...

papaya The papaya (, ), papaw, () or pawpaw () is the plant species ''Carica papaya'', one of the 21 accepted species in the genus ''Carica'' of the family Caricaceae. It was first domesticated in Mesoamerica, within modern-day southern Mexico and ...

and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

trees as well as

coconut The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...

and

pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...

consists of a string of islets from Buariki in the north to

Buota Buota is an islet and a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati. There are 1,756 inhabitants (2015). The islet is the southernmost part of North Tarawa even if there is a bridge connecting it to Bonriki and South Tarawa South Tarawa ( gi ...

in the south. The islets are separated in places by wide channels that are best crossed at low tide, and there is a ferry service between Buota and Abatao. Only Buota is connected by road to South Tarawa, via a bridge. On

, the construction of

causeways A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tr ...

has now created a single strip of land from Betio in the west to Tanaea in the northeast.

Climate

Tarawa features a tropical rainforest climate under the Köppen climate classification. The climate is pleasant from April to October, with predominant northeastern winds and stable temperatures close to . From November to March, western gales bring rain and occasional

cyclones In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

.Kiribati
'' Encyclopædia Britannica'' Thomas, 3 Precipitation varies significantly between islands. For example, the annual average is 3,000 mm (120 in) in the north and 500 mm (20 in) in the south of the Gilbert Islands. Most of these islands are in the dry belt of the equatorial oceanic climatic zone and experience prolonged droughts.

Administration

Tarawa atoll has three administrative subdivisions: Betio Town Council (or BTC), on Betio Islet; (or TUC), from Bairiki to Tanaea; and Eutan Tarawa Council (or ETC), for

or ''Tarawa Ieta'', consisting of all the islets on the east side from Buota northwards. The meaning of ''Te inainano'' in

Gilbertese language Gilbertese or taetae ni Kiribati, also Kiribati (sometimes ''Kiribatese''), is an Austronesian language spoken mainly in Kiribati. It belongs to the Micronesian branch of the Oceanic languages. The word ''Kiribati'', the current name of the i ...

is "down of the mast", alluding to the sail-shape of the atoll

hosts the capital of the Republic of Kiribati and was also the central headquarters of the

Gilbert and Ellice Islands The Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC as a colony) in the Pacific Ocean were part of the British Empire from 1892 to 1976. They were a protectorate from 1892 to 12 January 1916, and then a colony until 1 January 1976. The history of the colony w ...

since 1895. The House of Assembly is in Ambo, and the State House is in

Bairiki Bairiki is a settlement in South Tarawa of Kiribati. The State House, the National Stadium, the High Commissions of Australia and New Zealand as well as the embassy of China, and most of the Government Ministries are based in Bairiki. Bairiki is a ...

. The offices of the various ministries of the government range from Betio at the south-west extreme to Nawerewere (on an easterly island in its chain), close to

Bonriki Bonriki is a settlement on Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, near Temwaiku and is part of the municipality of South Tarawa. It is in the south-east of South Tarawa. Bonriki International Airport, one of two international airports in Kiribati, is located h ...

(International Airport) and

Temwaiku Temwaiku is a town and settlement in South Tarawa in Kiribati. It is part of a nearly continuous chain of settlements along the islands of South Tarawa, which are linked by causeways, in the same islet of Bonriki. Temwaiku had 4,072 inhabitant ...

. Settlements on North Tarawa include Buariki,

Abaokoro Abaokoro is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located about nine nautical miles from Tarawa. It is located in the Tarawa Atoll Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,

, Marenanuka and

Taborio Taborio is a settlement on the island of Tarawa, Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),

Diplomatic missions

Three resident diplomatic missions exist: the embassy of China (closed in 2003, re-opened in 2020), and the high commissions of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and New Zealand. The United Nations are also present in Kiribati, including UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, UNOPS, UN Women, WHO and FAO.

History

In Kiribati mythology, Tarawa was the earth when the land, ocean and sky had not been cleaved yet by Nareau the spider. Thus, after calling the sky ''karawa'' and the ocean ''marawa'', he called the piece of rock that ''Riiki'' (another god that Nareau found) had stood upon when he lifted up the sky as, ''Tarawa''. Nareau then created the rest of the islands in Kiribati and also Samoa. Gilbertese arrived at these islands thousands of years ago, and there have been migrations to and from

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

since antiquity. Evidence from a range of sources, including

carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

and DNA analyses, confirms that the

exploration of the Pacific Early Polynesian explorers reached nearly all Pacific islands by 1200 CE, followed by Asian navigation in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific. During the Middle Ages, Muslim traders linked the Middle East and East Africa to the Asian Pacific coas ...

included settlement of the Gilbert Islands by around 200 BC. The people of Tungaru (native name of the Gilbertese) are still excellent seafarers, capable of making ocean crossings in locally made vessels using traditional navigation techniques. Thomas Gilbert, captain of the East India Company vessel , was the first European to describe Tarawa, arriving on 20 June 1788. He did not land. He named it Matthew Island, after the owner of his ship ''Charlotte''. He named the lagoon Charlotte Bay. Gilbert's 1788 sketches survive. Tarawa 1873 map

The island was surveyed in 1841 by the US Exploring Expedition.

Charles Richard Swayne Charles Richard Swayne (1843 - 1921), born in Dublin, was the first Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands protectorate, from 1892 to 1895. Swayne had spent more than 20 years as a Magistrate at Lomaloma and then in Lau in Fi ...

, the first Resident Commissioner, decided to install the central headquarters of the

protectorate in Tarawa in 1895. Tarawa Post Office opened on 1 January 1911. Sir Arthur Grimble was a cadet administrative officer based at Tarawa (1913–1919) and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926. During World War II, Tarawa was occupied by the Japanese, and beginning on 20 November 1943 it was the scene of the bloody

. On that day

U.S. Marines The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary warfare, exped ...

landed on Tarawa and fought

Japanese soldiers Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

occupying entrenched positions on the atoll. The Marines captured the island after 76 hours of intense fighting that killed 6,000 people in total. The fierce fighting was the subject of a documentary film produced by the Combat Photographers of the Second Marine Division entitled ''

With the Marines at Tarawa ''With the Marines at Tarawa'' is a 1944 short documentary film directed by Louis Hayward. It uses authentic footage taken at the Battle of Tarawa to tell the story of the American servicemen from the time they get the news that they are to partic ...

''. It was released in March 1944 at the insistence of President Roosevelt. It became the first time many Americans viewed American servicemen dead on film.. The US built bases on Island. The Kiribati Government began a road restoration project funded in part by the World Bank in 2014 to re-surface the main road from Betio in the west to Bonriki in the east, upgrading the main road that transits Tarawa from a dirt road. As of 2018, all that remained to be completed of this project was the sealing of the Japanese Causeway, connecting Bairiki and Betio, done in 2019.

Literature and journal

* '' A Pattern of Islands'' by Sir Arthur Grimble, John Murray & Co, London, 1952; republished 2011 by Eland, London, * ''

Return to the Islands Return may refer to: In business, economics, and finance * Return on investment (ROI), the financial gain after an expense. * Rate of return, the financial term for the profit or loss derived from an investment * Tax return, a blank document or t ...

'' by Sir Arthur Grimble, John Murray & Co, London, 1957 * The 2004 book ''

The Sex Lives of Cannibals ''The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific''J. Maarten Troost, ''The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific'', Broadway Books, 2004 (). is a 2004 travelogue by author J. Maarten Troost describing the two yea ...

'' by

J. Maarten Troost Jan Maarten Troost (known professionally as J. Maarten Troost; born 1969) is a Dutch- American travel writer and essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlap ...

is a lighthearted account of the author's two years living on Tarawa. * ''The Precedence of Tarawa Atoll'', by

H.E. Maude Henry Evans Maude, (1 October 1906 – 4 November 2006) was a British Colonial Service administrator, historian and anthropologist. Life and career Maude was born in Bankipur (Bihar), Bankipore, British Raj, India.MAUDE, Henry Evans (1926) d ...

and Edwin Doran Jr,

Annals of the Association of American Geographers Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between anna ...

, Vol. 56, No. 2 (Jun. 1966), pp. 269–289. * ''Kiribati. Cronache illustrate da una terra (s)perduta'' is an illustrated book of Alice Piciocchi (illustrator: Andrea Angeli). March 2016. 24 Ore Cultura, Milan, also in French translation ''Chronique illustrée d’un archipel perdu'', éditions du Rouergue, 2018. * "Tarawa" by war correspondent Robert Sherrod was published in 1944 and chronicles the WWII battle

In popular culture

*Tarawa is the site of the 1944

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning photograph by

Frank Filan Frank Xavier Filan (December 7, 1905-July 23, 1952) was an Associated Press photographer and one of the winners of the 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Photography. He entered U.S. military service in 1929, and covered the pacific theater in WWII as a pho ...

, depicting a destroyed bunker. *Leon Cooper, a US Navy

Landing Craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. Pr ...

Operator who took part in the WWII battle, returned to the island in 2008 to investigate reports the beach he landed on was littered with garbage. His journey was chronicled in the documentary "Return to Tarawa: The Leon Cooper Story", narrated by Ed Harris. *"Tarawa Atoll Sanglant" is a Belgian comic written by Jean-Michel Charlier and

Victor Hubinon Victor Hubinon (26 April 1924 – 8 January 1979) was a Belgian comic-book artist, best known for the series ''Buck Danny'' and ''Redbeard''. Biography Victor Hubinon was born in Angleur, Belgium, in 1924.De Weyer, Geert (2005). "Victor Hubino ...

in 1950. () * Leon Uris' 1953 fictional ''

Battle Cry A battle cry or war cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same combatant group. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate (e.g. "Eulaliaaaa!", "Alala"..), although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious ...

'' extensively depicts the 1943 battle. (Uris was a Marine on

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

.) *A 1956 British drama film ''

Pacific Destiny ''Pacific Destiny'' is a 1956 British drama film directed by Wolf Rilla and starring Denholm Elliott, Susan Stephen and Michael Hordern. The screenplay concerns a young British couple who win the respect of the inhabitants of a South Pacific i ...

'' based on the book '' A Pattern of Islands'' was made in 1956. *''The Far Reaches'', a 2007 historical novel by Homer Hickam, describes the

. () * In the novel ''

Snow Falling on Cedars ''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is a 1994 novel by David Guterson. Guterson, a teacher, wrote the book in the early morning hours over ten years then quit his job to write full-time. Plot Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the Strait of Juan ...

'', Ishmael Chambers is a World War II US Marine Corps veteran who lost an arm fighting the Japanese at the Battle of Tarawa while watching his friends die. He revisits his part in the battle in a flashback.

Memorial

* USS ''Tarawa'' was the name of the first LHA-class amphibious assault ship.

References

External links

Tarawa on The Web – A History of the Bloodiest BattleThe Marine Assault of TarawaTarawa the Aftermath"Tarawa" the USCG cat
from the Navy Art Gallery * ttp://www.returntotarawa.com Return to Tawara {{Authority control Capitals in Oceania Populated places in Kiribati Atolls of Kiribati Gilbert Islands