Understand
The island got its names from its discovery by Capt. James Cook on Christmas Eve in 1777. Christmas became Kiritimati pronounced roughly "kee-rees-mass" in the local Gilbertese language.
Because of its position just west of the International Date Line, Kiritimati is the first inhabited island to begin each new day and year, and attracted a bit of Y2K tourism to celebrate that.
The entire island is a wildlife sanctuary.
