Kiribati

Known as Tungaru in the indigenous language, the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati was previously known as the Gilbert Islands (from the local word for “Gilbert's”) and is composed of 33 islands inhabited largely by Christians. Located at the intersection of Micronesian and Polynesian cultural areas, nearly all the citizens are indigenous, living in the Tungaru chain of islands, with more than one third of the total population residing in urban south Tarawa. Fifty-five percent of the residents adhere to Roman Catholic Christi anity, with the indigenous Kiribati Protestant Church claiming another 36%. Smaller religious communities include the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (2%, though the church the independently claimed 11% of the population in 2009), the Baha'i (2%), and the Seventh-Day Adventists (2%). ...