Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia, a subregion of Oceania, in the Central Pacific.

Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 kilometres (186 mi) to the east. It further lies northwest of Tuvalu, north of the Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands.

With 11,347 residents in a 21-square-kilometre (8.1 square-miles) area, Nauru is the smallest state in the South Pacific, smallest republic and third smallest state by area in the world, behind only Vatican City and Monaco.

Nauru is a phosphate rock island with rich deposits near the surface, which allowed easy strip mining operations. It has some remaining phosphate resources which, as of 2011, are not economically viable for extraction.

Nauru boasted the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

When the phosphate reserves were exhausted, and the island's environment had been seriously harmed by mining, the trust that had been established to manage the island's wealth diminished in value. To earn income, Nauru briefly became a tax haven and illegal money laundering centre.

From 2001 to 2008, and again from 2012 currently to 2018, it is accepting aid from the Australian Government in exchange for hosting the Nauru Regional Processing Centre on Nauru.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org