Kiritimati Kiritimati Kiritimati, or Christmas Island, is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name "Kiritimati" is a respelling of the English word "Christmas" in the Kiribati language, in which the combination "ti" is pronounced "s", and the name is thus pronounced . The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world, about ; its lagoon is roughly the same size. The atoll is about in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over . Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land
Kiritimati Kiritimati came to serve as the administrative center for the Line Islands. The United Kingdom detonated some of nuclear payload near and directly above Kiritimati in 1957/58, while the total yield of weapons tested by the United States in the vicinity of the island between 25 April and 11 July 1962 was . During the British Grapple X test of 8 November 1957 which took place directly above the southeastern tip of Kiritimati, yield was stronger than expected and there was some blast damage in the settlements. Islanders were usually not evacuated during the nuclear weapons testing, and data on