Introduction

Christmas Island

Background:

Named in 1643 for the day of its discovery, the island was annexed and settlement began by the UK in 1888. Phosphate mining began in the 1890s. The UK transferred sovereignty to Australia in 1958. Almost two-thirds of the island has been declared a national park.

Geography

Christmas Island

Location:	Southeastern Asia, island in the Indian Ocean, south of Indonesia
Geographic coordinates:	10 30 S, 105 40 E
Map references:	Southeast Asia
Area:	total: 135 sq km land: 135 sq km water: 0 sq km
Area - comparative:	about three-quarters the size of Washington, DC
Land boundaries:	0 km
Coastline:	138.9 km
Maritime claims:	territorial sea: 12 nm contiguous zone: 12 nm exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm
Climate:	tropical with a wet season (December to April) and dry season; heat and humidity moderated by trade winds
Terrain:	steep cliffs along coast rise abruptly to central plateau
Elevation extremes:	lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m highest point: Murray Hill 361 m
Natural resources:	phosphate, beaches
Land use:	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% other: 100% (mainly tropical rainforest; 63% of the island is a national park) (2005)
Irrigated land:	NA
Natural hazards:	the narrow fringing reef surrounding the island can be a maritime hazard
Environment - current issues:	loss of rainforest; impact of phosphate mining
Geography - note:	located along major sea lanes of Indian Ocean

People

Christmas Island

Population:	1,402 (July 2006 est.) (July 2007 est.)
Age structure:	0-14 years: NA 15-64 years: NA 65 years and over: NA
Population growth rate:	0% (2007 est.)
Birth rate:	NA
Death rate:	NA
Net migration rate:	NA
Sex ratio:	NA
Infant mortality rate:	total: NA male: NA female: NA
Life expectancy at birth:	total population: NA male: NA female: NA
Total fertility rate:	NA
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:	NA
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:	NA
HIV/AIDS - deaths:	NA
Nationality:	noun: Christmas Islander(s) adjective: Christmas Island
Ethnic groups:	Chinese 70%, European 20%, Malay 10% note: no indigenous population (2001)
Religions:	Buddhist 36%, Muslim 25%, Christian 18%, other 21% (1997)
Languages:	English (official), Chinese, Malay
Literacy:	NA

Government

Christmas Island

Country name:	conventional long form: Territory of Christmas Island conventional short form: Christmas Island
Dependency status:	non-self governing territory of Australia; administered from Canberra by the Australian Attorney-General's Department
Government type:	NA
Capital:	name: The Settlement geographic coordinates: 10 25 S, 105 43 E time difference: UTC+7 (12 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)
Administrative divisions:	none (territory of Australia)
Independence:	none (territory of Australia)
National holiday:	Australia Day, 26 January (1788)
Constitution:	Christmas Island Act of 1958-59 (1 October 1958) as amended by the Territories Law Reform Act of 1992
Legal system:	under the authority of the governor general of Australia and Australian law
Executive branch:	chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952), represented by the Australian governor general head of government: Administrator Neil LUCAS (since 30 January 2006) elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; administrator appointed by the governor general of Australia and represents the monarch and Australia
Legislative branch:	unicameral Christmas Island Shire Council (9 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms) elections: held every two years with half the members standing for election; last held 20 October 2007 (next to be held in 2009) election results: percent of vote - NA; seats - independents 9
Judicial branch:	Supreme Court; District Court; Magistrate's Court
Political parties and leaders:	none
Political pressure groups and leaders:	none
International organization participation:	none
Diplomatic representation in the US:	none (territory of Australia)
Diplomatic representation from the US:	none (territory of Australia)
Flag description:	territorial flag; divided diagonally from upper hoist to lower fly; the upper triangle is green with a yellow image of the Golden Bosun Bird superimposed, while the lower triangle is blue with the Southern Cross constellation, representing Australia, superimposed; a centered yellow disk displays a green map of the island note: the flag of Australia is used for official purposes

Economy

Christmas Island

Economy - overview:	Phosphate mining had been the only significant economic activity, but in December 1987 the Australian Government closed the mine. In 1991, the mine was reopened. With the support of the government, a $34 million casino opened in 1993, but closed in 1998. The Australian Government in 2001 agreed to support the creation of a commercial space-launching site on the island, expected to begin operations in the near future.
GDP (purchasing power parity):	$NA
Labor force:	NA
Budget:	revenues: $NA expenditures: $NA
Agriculture - products:	NA
Industries:	tourism, phosphate extraction (near depletion)
Electricity - production by source:	fossil fuel: NA hydro: NA nuclear: NA other: NA
Exports:	$NA
Exports - commodities:	phosphate
Exports - partners:	Australia, NZ (2006)
Imports:	$NA
Imports - commodities:	consumer goods
Imports - partners:	principally Australia (2006)
Economic aid - recipient:	$NA
Currency (code):	Australian dollar (AUD)
Currency code:	AUD
Exchange rates:	Australian dollars per US dollar - 1.2137 (2007), 1.3285 (2006), 1.3095 (2005), 1.3598 (2004), 1.5419 (2003)
Fiscal year:	1 July - 30 June

Communications

Christmas Island

Telephones - main lines in use:	NA
Telephone system:	general assessment: service provided by the Australian network domestic: GSM mobile telephone service replaced older analog system in February 2005 international: country code - 61-8; satellite earth stations - 1 INTELSAT earth station provides telephone and telex service (2005)
Radio broadcast stations:	AM 1, FM 2, shortwave 0 (2006)
Radios:	1,000 (1997)
Television broadcast stations:	0 (TV broadcasts received via satellite from mainland Australia) (2006)
Televisions:	600 (1997)
Internet country code:	.cx
Internet hosts:	1,826 (2007)
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):	2 (2000)
Internet users:	464 (2001)

Transportation

Christmas Island

Airports:	1 (2007)
Airports - with paved runways:	total: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 1 (2007)
Roadways:	total: 142 km paved: 32 km unpaved: 110 km (2006)
Ports and terminals:	Flying Fish Cove

Military

Christmas Island

Military - note:

defense is the responsibility of Australia

Transnational Issues

Christmas Island

Disputes - international:

none

History of Christmas Island

For centuries, Christmas Island's isolation and rugged coasts provided natural barriers to settlement. British and Dutch navigators first included the island on their charts from the early seventeenth century, and Captain William Mynors of the East India Ship Company vessel, the Royal Mary, named the island when he arrived on Christmas Day, 25th December, 1643. The island first appears on a map produced by Pieter Goos and published in 1666. Goos had labelled the island Moni.

The earliest recorded visit was in March of 1688 by William Dampier of the British ship Cygnet, who found it uninhabited. An account of the visit can be found in Dampier's Voyages, which describes how, when trying to reach Cocos from New Holland, his ship was pulled off course in an easterly direction and after 28 days arrived at Christmas Island. Dampier landed at the Dales (on the West Coast) and two of his crewmen were the first recorded people to set foot on Christmas Island.

The next visit was by Daniel Beekman, who described it in his 1718 book, A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East Indies.

In 1771 the Indian vessel, the Pigot, attempted to find an anchorage but was unsuccessful; the crew reported seeing wild pigs and coconut palms. However, pigs have never been introduced to the island, so the Pigot may have found a different island.

The first attempt at exploring the island was in 1857 by the crew of the Amethyst. They tried to reach the summit of the island, but found the cliffs impassable.

During the 1872-76 Challenger expedition to Indonesia, naturalist Dr John Murray carried out extensive surveys. At his urging, the British Admiralty annexed the 135 square kilometre island on 6 June 1888. But it was not until 1888 that Christmas Island was settled, when the Clunies-Ross brothers from neighbouring Cocos-Keeling Islands (some 900 kilometres to the south west) established a settlement at Flying Fish Cove to collect timber and supplies for the growing industry on Cocos.

In 1887, Captain Maclear of HMS Flying Fish, having discovered an anchorage in a bay that he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a party and made a small but interesting collection of the flora and fauna. In the next year, Pelham Aldrich, on board HMS Egeria, visited it for ten days, accompanied by J. J. Lister, who gathered a larger biological and mineralogical collection.

Among the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John Murray for examination were many of nearly pure phosphate of lime, a discovery which led to annexation of the island by the British Crown in June 1888. Soon afterwards, a small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, and phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from Singapore, China, and Malaysia.

The island was administered jointly by the British Phosphate Commissioners and District Officers from the United Kingdom Colonial Office through the Straits Settlements, and later the Crown Colony of Singapore. Japan invaded and occupied the island in 1942, as the Indian garrison mutinied, and interned the residents until the end of World War II in 1945. At Australia's request, the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty to Australia; in 1957, the Australian government paid the government of Singapore £2.9 million in compensation, a figure based mainly on an estimated value of the phosphate foregone by Singapore.

The first Australian Official Representative arrived in 1958 and was replaced by an Administrator in 1968. Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean Territories and since 1997 share a single Administrator resident on Christmas Island.

Since the late 1980s or early 1990s Christmas Island periodically received boatloads of refugees, mostly from Indonesia. These, and the occasional illegal fishing boat, were never a large issue, often welcomed by locals who looked forward to the exploding of the boats once the "boat people" had been processed [citation needed]. During 2001, Christmas Island received a large number of asylum seekers travelling by boat, most of them from the Middle East and intending to apply for asylum in Australia. The arrival of the Norwegian cargo vessel MV Tampa, which had rescued people from the sinking Indonesian fishing-boat Palapa in international waters nearby, precipitated a diplomatic standoff between Australia, Norway, and Indonesia. The vessel held 420 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, 13 from Sri Lanka, and five from Indonesia. The standoff eventually led to the asylum seekers being transported to Nauru for processing. Another boatload of asylum seekers was taken from Christmas Island to Papua New Guinea for processing, after it was claimed that many of the adult asylum seekers threw their children into the water, apparently in protest at being turned away. This was later proven to be false.

John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, later passed legislation through the Australian Parliament which excised Christmas Island from Australia's migration zone, meaning that asylum seekers arriving there could not automatically apply for refugee status, allowing the Australian navy to relocate them to other countries as part of the Pacific Solution. As of 2005, the Department of Immigration has begun construction of an "Immigration Reception and Processing Centre", due for completion in late 2006. The facility is estimated to cost $210 million, and will contain 800 beds.

Last update on 5 March 2008