Geography of Nauru: Location, Topography, Landscape | Sea Life, Islands and Oceania

Home | Category: Nature, Environment, Animals / Places and Travel Information

GEOGRAPHY OF NAURU

map of Nauru

Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world behind the Holy See (Vatican City) and Monaco. Covering only 21 square kilometers (8 square miles), it is also the smallest country in the Pacific Ocean, the smallest country outside Europe, the world's smallest island country, and the world's smallest independent republic.

Nauru is one of the three great phosphate rock islands in the Pacific Ocean: the others are Banaba (Ocean Island) in Kiribati and Makatea in French Polynesia. Nauru has a relatively high population density and no official capital (government offices are in Yaren District.

Nauru is a raised coral island comprised on a raised reef consisting of calcite and phosphate on a volcanic base. It is roughly circular in shape, extending 5.6 kilometers (3.5 miles) north–northeast to south–southwest and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) east–southeast to west–northwest. [Source: “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations”, Thomson Gale, 2007]

More than a century of phosphate mining in the central plateau has left behind barren landscape of jagged, coral pinnacles,. Mining has stripped and devastated four-fifths of the total land area of the island and efforts to rehabiltate the mined-out areas have been largely unsuccessful. [Source: “Countries of the World and Their Leaders Yearbook” 2009]

Administrative Divisions: 14 districts; Aiwo, Anabar, Anetan, Anibare, Baitsi, Boe, Buada, Denigomodu, Ewa, Ijuw, Meneng, Nibok, Uaboe, Yaren. [Source: CIA World Factbook 2023]

Location of Nauru

Nauru is situated just 53 kilometers (33 miles) south of the Equator in the Central or South Pacific Ocean, south of the Marshall Islands and northeast of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Nauru is relatively isolated from other landmasses. Its closest neighbor is Banaba Island in Kiribati, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) away, although the distance to Kiribati's capital, Tarawa, is approximately 725 kilometers (450 miles). The capital of the Marshall Islands, Majuro, lies about 1,260 kilometers (783 miles) to the northeast.

Location of Nauru

Australia is the nearest continent, with Brisbane located approximately 3,327 kilometers (2,067 miles) to the southwest. Auckland, New Zealand, is about 4,109 kilometers (2,553 miles) from Nauru, while Honolulu, Hawaii, is approximately 4,525 kilometers (2,812 miles) to the north-northeast. Across the Pacific Ocean, Los Angeles is about 8,651 kilometers (5,375 miles) from Nauru.

Nauru is part of of Oceania, a vast geographical and geopolitical region centered on the Pacific Ocean, comprising the continent of Australia, the microcontinent of Zealandia (New Zealand), and thousands of islands. Coined in 1831, it functions as one of the world's seven continents spanning a total area of over 8.3 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles).

Nauru is geographically located in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania, as it is relatively close to the Marshall Islands, though its indigenous Nauruan population possesses a blended ancestry of Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polynesian heritage. The region known as Micronesia ("small islands") is generally divided geographically into three archipelagoes: the Marshall Islands, the Marianas (including Guam and Saipan) and the Caroline Islands. The four states of the Federated States of Micronesia—Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk and Yap— are all part of the Caroline Islands, which in turn are divided into the Western Caroline Islands (Palau, Yap and Chuck) and the Eastern Caroline Islands (Pohnpei and Kosrae).

Polynesia is a vast triangular subregion of Oceania (the "Polynesian Triangle") with Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island at each corner and containing places like Tahiti, French Polynesia, Samoa, Tonga, Kirabati and Tuvalu. Polynesians are closely-related peoples who share similar languages, seafaring traditions, and social structures. Samo, has many cultural and historical ties with neighboring Tonga, the Cook Islands, and Tahiti. Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania stretching from the western Pacific to the Arafura Sea, between northern Australia and southern New Guinea, characterized by darker-skinned indigenous populations (such as in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands).

Geographical Data for Nauru

satellite images of Nauru

Area: total: 21 square kilometers (8 square miles); land: 21 square kilometers (8 square miles); water: 0 square kilometers (0 square miles); ranking compared to other countries in the world: 239. It is about 10 percent the size of Washington D.C. Elevation: highest point: Command Ridge 70 meters (230 feet); lowest point: Pacific Ocean: 0 meters. Geographic Coordinates: 0 32 S, 166 55 E.[Source: CIA World Factbook]

Coastline: 30 kilometers (19 miles); Maritime Claims: territorial sea: 22.2 kilometers (12 nautical miles; 13.8 miles); contiguous zone: 44.4 kilometers (24 nautical miles; 27.6 miles); exclusive economic zone: 370.4 kilometers (200 nautical miles; 230.2 miles).Land Boundaries: total: 0 kilometers (0 miles);

Land Use: agricultural land: 20 percent (2018 estimate). Arable Land: 0 percent (2018 estimate); permanent crops: 20 percent (2018 estimate); permanent pasture: 0 percent (2018 estimate); forest: 0 percent (2018 estimate); other: 80 percent (2018 estimate). Arable land is land cultivated for crops like wheat, maize, and rice that are replanted after each harvest. Permanent crops is land cultivated for crops like fruit trees oranges that are not replanted after each harvest. Irrigated Land: 0 square kilometers (2022).

Islands and Atolls

Ocean islands are basically divided into three types: 1) "low" coral and sand islands; 2) "high" islands (usually exposed peaks and ridge-tops of submerged mountains and volcanoes); and 3) parts of the continental shelf. Some continental islands were mountains and hills along the coast during last Ice Age when ocean levels were lower.

Low islands or cays were formed on coral shoals from reef sediments. Atoll islands are low islands (See Below). Seabird dropping fertilize the soils of some of these islands, which allow scrubby forest to take root. Others are battered regularly by storms and are little more than shifting piles of sand. Some patches of sand are so low they disappear during low tide and lose their status as islands.

High islands generally have better soil and a better supply of water than low islands. Low islands support only a few species of plant because there little topsoil and this soil has a high salt content. Although they often have no visible water sources they often are positioned over water lenses that trap rain water and can provide fresh water through wells.

An atoll is a group of islands that encircle a central lagoon. Classic atolls develop on the top guyots, flat-topped volcanic sea mounts, that rise above the sea and then erode and sink under the weight of the coral reefs that grow on their slopes. A classic atolls begins as a reef that forms around a high island. As the island sinks under the weight of the coral reef, the coral reef grows upwards causing the island to sink even more. This process eventually forms a barrier reef which is separated from the shore by a shallow lagoon. Eventually the original mountain becomes completely submerged and islands are created from the coral and sand deposits that accumulate on the highest points of the reef. These islands often roughly follow the contour of the original mountain top. The atoll-making process takes hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

Topography and Land Cover of Nauru

Nauru has a narrow fringing reef that is exposed at low tide and drops off very steeply to the ocean floor. Rough and sandy beaches rise to a fertile but narrow belt around a raised, prehistoric coral reef plateau with a phosphate plateau in center. The phosphate plateau is studded with coral pinnacles exposed by phosphate mining and depressions where the mining has taken place.

Topographically, Nauru is shaped like a hat, with a coastal fringe forming the brim and the raised interior forming the crown. The belt is approximately 150 to 300 meters (490 to 980 feet) wide. On the inland side, a coral cliff rises to a height of up to 30 meters (98 feet) above sea level. This central plateau once contained the richest deposit of phosphate rock in the Pacific, but the deposit has been largely exhausted through mining, leaving behind an almost impassable landscape of stark coral pinnacles up to 15 meters (49 feet.) high. [Source: Nancy J. Pollock, “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 2: Oceania,” edited by Terence E. Hays, 1996]

The central plateau of phosphate-bearing rock, known as Topside, comprises four-fifths of Nauru's landmass. The coastal strip consists of sandy beaches fringed by palm trees. Nauru's coral reefs include a large underwater grotto known as the Cave. A popular spot for divers, the Cave is some 30 meters (98 feet) below sea level. [Source: Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Physical Geography, The Gale Group, 2003]

Nauru has no rivers or mountains nor does it have any natural harbor or anchorage. . Buada Lagoon, a permanent, often brackish lake, covers about 120 hectares (300 acres) in the southeastern end of the plateau. Apart from some brackish ponds and an underground lake, Nauru’s water supply is provided by rainfall. The fact that Nauru has very steep sides that drop down to the ocean floor has made anchorage for shipping difficult and necessitated the use of a special mooring device. [Source: Nancy J. Pollock, “Countries and Their Cultures”, Gale Group Inc., 2001]

The wide fertile coastal strip ends in forested coral cliffs that rise up to the now mined-out central plateau. The island' only fertile areas are within the narrow coastal belt, where there are coconut palms, pandanus trees, and indigenous hardwoods, and the land surrounding the inland Buada lagoon on the central plateau, where bananas, pineapples, and some vegetables are grown. Some secondary vegetation covers the scarred central plateau and its coral pinnacles. It is mainly scrub brush, with the occasional coconut and tamanu tree. [Source: “Countries of the World and Their Leaders Yearbook” 2009]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: CIA World Factbook; “Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 2: Oceania,” edited by Terence E. Hays, 1991, Wikipedia, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, BBC, CNN, and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated July 2026