Gilbert Islands

Gilbert Islands

The Gilbert Islands share 85 connections with 2102 other places across 17 topics, shaped most heavily by military history, colonial governance, and Pacific geography. Military connections dominate, anchored in the Second World War when the islands fell to the United States in late 1943. Government ties are strong as well, spanning the 1974 separation of Tuvalu and the islands' eventual independence as Kiribati. The Marshall Islands, Philippines, and Japan all share many connections here. Micronesian in language and culture, the islands sit just north of the Polynesian triangle.