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 there are no truly native land mammals and only one native land bird – Kiribati's endemic reed-warbler, the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis"). The 1957 attempt to introduce the endangered Rimitara lorikeet ("Vini kuhlii") has largely failed; a few birds seem to linger on, but the lack of abundant coconut palm forest, on which this tiny parrot depends, makes Kiritimati a suboptimal habitat for this species. The natural vegetation on Kiritimati consists mostly of low shrubland and grassland. What little woodland exists is mainly open coconut palm ("Cocos nucifera") plantation. There are three small woods of catchbird trees ("Pisonia grandis"), at Southeast