London (

Gilbertese Gilbertese (), also known as Kiribati (sometimes ''Kiribatese'' or ''Tungaru''), 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 th ...

: ''Ronton''; historically: ''Londres'') is a village in

Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...

, located on the island of

Kiritimati Kiritimati (), also known as Christmas Island, is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonol ...

, within the archipelago of

Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands () are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons, except Vostok and Jarvis) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawa ...

. It is the administrative capital of Kiritimati.

Name

London was originally named ''Londres'' by French priest Emmanuel Rougier, who was leasing the island from

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

from 1917 to 1939, and wanted to honor the island's British connection. In 1939, the island reverted to Britain and ''Londres'' was anglicised to London. Its local name, Ronton, is derived from "London" written in

according to its

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

Demographics

In 2015, London was inhabited by 1,895 people, making it the second most populous of the four villages on the island. The overwhelming majority of the population of Kiritimati as of 2023 lived in the

Tabwakea Tabwakea is the largest village on the island of Kiritimati, within the archipelago of Line Islands of Kiribati. Name Tabwakea means turtle in Gilbertese language, Gilbertese, which refers to the island's first name given by James Cook, Turtles ...

Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

, London, or

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

villages.

Infrastructure

The headquarters of the Ministry of Line and Phoenix Islands Development is located in London. The Port of London is Kiritimati's major

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Climate

References

Populated places in Kiribati Kiritimati {{kiribati-geo-stub Climate