Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands and part of the Republic of Kiribati.
The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world: about 124 sq miles; its lagoon is about the same size. The atoll is about 93 miles in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over 30 miles. Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a nation encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands. Kiribati was named Gilbert Islands after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sighted the islands in 1788. The current name, Kiribati, is an adaptation of "Gilberts", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands". Although the indigenous Gilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper is Tungaru, the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of islands which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain.

It lies 144 miles north of the Equator, 4,200 miles from Sydney, and 3,330 miles from San Francisco. Kiritimati is in the world's furthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and Kiritimati is the first inhabited place on Earth to experience the New Year each year. Despite being 1,530 miles east of the 180 meriXdian [Misspelled due to Naughty Word list], a 1995 realignment of the International Dateline by the Republic of Kiribati "moved" Kiritimati to west of the dateline.

Kiribati has no currency of their own and uses the Australian Dollar....