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 species dominates in the coastal grasslands. The wetter parts of the lagoon shore are often covered by abundant growth of shoreline purslane ("Sesuvium portulacastrum"). Perhaps the most destructive of the recently introduced plants is sweetscent ("Pluchea odorata"), a camphorweed, which is considered an invasive weed as it overgrows and displaces herbs and grasses. The introduced creeper "Tribulus cistoides", despite having also spread conspicuously, is considered to be more beneficial than harmful to the ecosystem, as it provides good nesting sites for some seabirds. More than 35 bird species have been recorded from Kiritimati. As noted above, only the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus