About this site

The project

Nauru’s history is often told in fragments: a line about phosphate, a headline about offshore processing, a statistic about the world’s smallest republic. This site tries to bring those fragments together into a single, readable story, from the first settlement of the island to the challenges it faces today.

How the site is organised

The history is divided into three eras, each with its own overview page:

• Early Nauru — from the first settlers to German annexation in 1888.
• Colonial Nauru — from 1888 to independence in 1968.
• Modern Nauru — from 1968 to the present day.

The articles explore individual episodes in more depth, and the timeline brings the key events of all three eras together in one place.

A note on the content

The articles on this site were drafted with the assistance of AI, drawing on widely published histories of Nauru. They are intended as an accessible introduction rather than a work of original research. For study or citation, please consult the sources listed below.

Dates for the earliest periods of Nauruan history rely on archaeology, linguistics and oral tradition, and should be read as estimates. Nauruan personal, clan and place names are spelled in several different ways in historical sources; this site uses common modern spellings.

Sources and further reading

• Albert F. Ellis, Ocean Island and Nauru: Their Story (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1935).
• Madeline Gleeson, Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru (Sydney: NewSouth, 2016).
• Paul Hambruch, Nauru, 2 vols. (Hamburg, 1914–15), part of the published results of the Hamburg South Seas Expedition, 1908–1910.
• International Court of Justice, Certain Phosphate Lands in Nauru (Nauru v. Australia), Preliminary Objections, Judgment of 26 June 1992.
• Carl N. McDaniel and John M. Gowdy, Paradise for Sale: A Parable of Nature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).
• Cait Storr, International Status in the Shadow of Empire: Nauru and the Histories of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• Nancy Viviani, Nauru: Phosphate and Political Progress (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970).
• Camilla H. Wedgwood, “Report on Research Work in Nauru Island, Central Pacific,” Oceania (1936).
• Christopher Weeramantry, Nauru: Environmental Damage under International Trusteeship (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992).
• Maslyn Williams and Barrie Macdonald, The Phosphateers: A History of the British Phosphate Commissioners and the Christmas Island Phosphate Commission (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1985).
• Wikipedia, “List of colonial governors of Nauru”, “President of Nauru” and biographical articles on Nauru’s presidents and Head Chiefs (used for the Leaders page; CC BY-SA).

Image credits

Images are listed by their file reference, with author, licence and source where attribution is required.