Factbook
Histoire de Nauru — Chronologie
Dates clés de l'histoire de Nauru, d'après le Factbook Magna et l'Encyclopédie universelle.
1798In 1798, a British mariner was the first European to spot the island and by 1830, European whalers used Nauru as a supply stop, trading firearms for food.
1878A civil war in 1878 reduced the population by more than a third.
1888Germany forcibly annexed Nauru in 1888 by holding the 12 chiefs under house arrest until they consented to the annexation.
1900Phosphate was discovered in 1900 and was heavily mined, although Nauru and Nauruans earned about one tenth of one percent of the profits from the phosphate deposits.
1919Australian forces captured Nauru from Germany during World War I, and in 1919, it was placed under a joint Australian-British-New Zealand mandate with Australian administration.
1962In 1962, recognizing the phosphate stocks would eventually be depleted, Australian Prime Minister Robert MENZIES offered to resettle all Nauruans on Curtis Island in Queensland, but Nauruans rejected that plan and opted for independence, which was achieved in 1968.
1968Independence: 31 January 1968 (from the Australia-, NZ-, and UK-administered UN trusteeship).
1970In 1970, Nauru purchased the phosphate mining assets, and income from the mines made Nauruans among the richest people in the world.
2000However, a series of unwise investments led to near bankruptcy by 2000.
2001In 2001, Australia set up the Nauru Regional Processing Center (NRPC), an offshore refugee detention facility, paying Nauru per person at the center.
2005As its economy faltered, Nauru briefly tried to rebrand itself as an offshore banking haven, an initiative that ended in 2005, and the country made a successful bid for Russian humanitarian aid in 2008.
2006Widespread phosphate mining officially ceased in 2006.
2008The NRPC closed in 2008 but reopened in 2012.
2011Languages: Nauruan 93% (official, a distinct Pacific Island language), English 2% (widely understood, spoken, and used for most government and commercial purposes), other 5% (includes Gilbertese 2% and Chinese 2%) (2011 est.) Religions: Protestant 60.4% (Nauruan Congregational 34.7%, Assemblies of God 11.6%, Pacific Light House 6.3%, Nauru Independent 3.6%, Baptist 1.5, Seventh Day Adventist 1.3%, other Protestant 1.4%), Roman Catholic 33.9%, other 4.2%, none 1.3%, no answer 0.3% (2021 est.) Urban population: 100% of total population (2023).
2014The number of refugees steadily declined after 2014, and in 2020, the remaining people were moved to Brisbane, Australia, effectively shuttering the NRPC.
2022upper-middle-income Pacific island country; phosphate resource exhaustion made island interior uninhabitable; licenses fishing rights; houses Australia’s Regional Processing Centre; former tax haven; largely dependent on foreign subsidies Inflation: 2.6% (2022 est.).
2023Generation mix — fossil fuels: 88% of total installed capacity (2023 est.); solar: 12% of total installed capacity (2023 est.) Airports: 1 (2025).
2023However, in 2023, Australia agreed to continue funding NRPC for two years and restarted settling asylees in the center in mid-2023.
2023Industries: phosphate mining, offshore banking, coconut products Agriculture: coconuts, tropical fruits, pork, eggs, pork offal, pork fat, chicken, papayas, vegetables, cabbages (2023) Electricity access: 100% (2022 est.).
