Wikipedia
Kiritimati, sometimes Christmas Island, is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands, and part of the Republic of Kiribati.
The name "Kiritimati" is a rather straightforward respelling of the English word "Christmas" in the Kiribati language, in which the combination ti is pronounced s, and the name is thus pronounced . Although most non-Kiribati people still correctly say the island's name as Christmas or Christmas Island, the change in spelling sometimes results in those not "in the know" to mispronounce it as the letter combination "Kiritimati" would be pronounced in English.
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 area of Kiribati, a country encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands.
It lies north of the Equator, south of Honolulu, and from San Francisco. Kiritimati Island is in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and is one of the first inhabited places on Earth to experience the New Year (see also Caroline Atoll, Kiribati). Despite being east of the 180 meridian, a 1995 realignment of the International Dateline by the Republic of Kiribati moved Kiritimati to west of the dateline.
Nuclear tests were conducted on and around Kiribati by the United Kingdom in the late 1950s, and by the United States in 1962. During these tests islanders were not evacuated. Subsequently British, New Zealand, and Fijian servicemen as well as local islanders have claimed to have suffered from exposure to the radiation from these blasts.
The entire island is a Wildlife Sanctuary; access to five particularly sensitive areas (see below) is restricted.