Kiribati is the only country in the world that has islands in all four corners of the Earth: the North, South, East, and West.

Kiribati has 33 small coral islands spread across a huge area of ocean — about 3.5 million square kilometers! That’s almost the same size as the United States, but most of it is water. Some of Kiribati’s islands are above the Equator and some are below it. The Equator is an invisible line that splits the world into North and South, so Kiribati lives in both halves of the world! The world is also split into East and West by another invisible line called the 180th meridian. Kiribati has islands on both sides of this line too. The Gilbert Islands are on the eastern side, and the Phoenix and Line Islands are on the western side. This makes Kiribati the only country that touches all four parts of the world’s map at the same time! Because the islands are so far apart, people used to be in different days. Before 1995, one part of the country was 22 hours behind another part — so it could be Monday in one place and still Sunday somewhere else! To fix this, the government moved the International Date Line around the country so everyone could share the same day. Now, Kiribati’s Line Islands are one of the first places in the world to see the sunrise each day. The country uses three time zones to help everyone stay connected and organized. Even though only about 120,000 people live there, they are spread across more of the planet than people in any other country!