Nauru

The Republic of Nauru (pronounced //), formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island republic in the South Pacific Ocean. It is one of the world's smallest independent countries both in terms of population and land area and the smallest independent republic in both terms. It is also the smallest non-European country (in terms of land area).

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Much of its past prosperity derived from the large amount of phosphate deposits on the island, believed to be either of guano or of marine origin. Superphosphate is used as a fertilizer around the world in aerial topdressing and the majority of it has been exported to Australia. With the exhaustion of the phosphate supplies, Nauru faces an uncertain future. In the 1990s, it tried to gain new sources of income by introducing itself as a tax haven, but this story came to an end in July 2004.

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Nauru currently houses a detention centre, which holds and processes asylum seekers as part of Australia's Pacific Solution.

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Republic: :This article concentrates on the several forms of government of real states and countries that have been termed republic, for all other uses see: republic (disambiguation)...

Pacific Ocean: :For other meanings of Pacific, see Pacific (disambiguation)....

Phosphate: In chemistry, a phosphate is a polyatomic ion or radical consisting of one phosphorus atom and four oxygen. In the ionic form, it carries a -3 formal charge, and is denoted PO43-....