Nauru is a tiny coral island in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the smallest independent nations of the world. Not much was known about this island country until the whale hunters started halting at Nauru for collecting food and water. Nauru came under German control by 1888.
The people of Nauru thrived on fishing and small scale farming. Little did they know that their life was going to change when they discovered phosphate deposits in its plateaus.
There was a heavy demand for phosphate in England for making chemical fertilizers and the Pacific Phosphate Company owned by the British made an agreement with the German administration to mine the phosphate deposits in Nauru. This happened in 1906 and in the following year, they started mining.
By 1920, the phosphate industry was taken over by the British Phosphate Commission, a joint Australian, British, and New Zealand enterprise. Nauru became an independent country in 1968 and took control over its phosphate business by 1970; the money from phosphate made Nauru one of the richest countries in the world.
Picture Credit : Google