Facts about Tuvalu
The Tuvalu dollar, the local currency, is coupled to the Australian dollar.
Tuvalu’s small population of 11,636 in 2005 has more than doubled since 1980, and may be contributing to its environmental damage.
On Tuvalu, Christianity has been mixed with some elements of the indigenous religions.
By the early 1800s, whalers visited Tuvalu only infrequently due to the difficulties of landing ships on the atoll.
In 2001, Tuvalu's government announced that the islands may need to be evacuated in the event of rising sea levels.
Tuvalu (pronounced too-VAH-loo) consists of four reef islands and five true atolls.
Tuvalu was first sighted by Europeans in 1568 with the arrival of Alvaro de Mendaсa y Neyra from Spain, who encountered the island of Nui but was unable to land.
About 1,800 km (1,100 mi) of roads in cross Ladakh of which 800 km (500 mi) has been surfaced.
In 1979, Tuvalu signed a treaty of friendship with the United States, which recognized Tuvalu's possession of four small islands formerly claimed by the United States.
Tuvaluans are a Polynesian people who possibly settled the islands around 2,000 years ago, coming from Tonga and Samoa.
The most famous forms of poetry in Afghanistan are Ghazal and Charbeiti, both of which were originally unique to the Persian language but have since been used by other languages.
Europeans brought diseases new to the Pacific that caused many deaths in Tuvalu.
Traditional Tuvalu music consists of a number of dances, most popularly including fatele, “fakanu” and “fakaseasea,” and were used to celebrate leaders and other prominent individuals.
In 1998, Tuvalu began deriving revenue from use of its area code for "900" telephone lines and about US$1.5 million annually from the sale of its ".tv" Internet domain name.
Tuvalu is a constitutional monarchy and is part of the Commonwealth Realm, with Queen Elizabeth II recognized as Queen of Tuvalu.
Imported rice and flour are now important in the Tuvaluan daily diet, as well as canned and frozen meat.
Tuvaluan is historically related to Polynesian Outlier languages in Melanesia, and is a more distant relative of Samoan and Tokelauan.
To a large extent, the traditional community system still survives on Tuvalu.
A major issue in contemporary Holocaust studies is the question of functionalism versus intentionalism.
About 97 percent of the Tuvaluans are members of the Church of Tuvalu, a Protestant Christian church.
Funafuti is the largest atoll of the nine low reef islands and atolls that form the Tuvalu volcanic island chain.
Tuvalu has almost no natural resources, and its main form of income consists of foreign aid.
Tuvalu became a member of United Nations in 2000 and maintains a mission at the UN in New York.
The highest court in Tuvalu is the High Court, and there are eight island courts with limited jurisdiction.
A traditional sport played in Tuvalu is "kilikiti," which is similar to cricket.
The following year, the Ellice Islands became the separate British colony of Tuvalu.
In 1892, the islands became part of the British protectorate of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, with Tuvalu being called the Ellice Islands.
Tuvaluans are worried about the submerging of the islands and a growing number have left the island.
In 1865, the London Missionary Society, Protestant congregationalists, began evangelizing Tuvalu.
Tuvalu also has almost no potable water, and the thin poor soil is hardly usable for agriculture.
During World War II, Tuvalu was selected as an operations base for Allied forces battling the Japanese in the Pacific in 1943.