Postage stamps and postal history of Tuvalu Postage stamps and postal history of Tuvalu Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls. Its population of 10,472 makes it the third-least populous sovereign state in the world. In terms of physical land size, at just Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world. Tuvalu was formerly the Ellice Islands, part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands which split into Kiribati and Tuvalu upon gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1978
Pacific Islands the Pacific Ocean once colonised by the British, French, Dutch, United States, and Japanese, such as the Pitcairn Islands, Taiwan, and Borneo. In other uses it may refer to islands with Austronesian linguistic heritage like Taiwan, Indonesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Myanmar islands, which found their genesis in the Neolithic cultures of the island of Taiwan. Many islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean are not considered part of Oceania. These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador; the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, United States; Vancouver Island in Canada; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands; the island nation