Kiritimati (Christmas Island) Christmas Island Kiribati

Cook on his third voyage discovers an uninhabited member of the Line Islands group on Christmas Eve (December 24), 1777.

Named Christmas Island, it is today known as Kiritimati and is part of the Republic of Kiribati.

The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world: about three hundred and twenty-two square kilometers (one hundred and twenty-four square miles); its lagoon is about the same size.

The atoll is about one hundred and fifty kilometers (ninety-three miles) in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over forty-eight kilometers (thirty miles).

Kiritimati comprises over seventy percent of the total land area of present Kiribati, a nation encompassing thirty-three Pacific atolls and islands.