The island 300 times smaller than UK that rules swathes of ocean with almost no defences

Fanning Island, part of the island nation of Kiribati (Image: Getty) The tiny nation of Kiribati controls more of the ocean than the country with the largest population in the world - India - despite having 1.4 billion fewer citizens. Due to its remoteness, the country of around 130,000 inhabitants, commands the 12th largest exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the world.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an EEZ "is an area of the ocean, generally extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation's territorial sea, within which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over both living and nonliving resources." The Marshall Islands are the closest nation to Kiribati, but it's more than 230 miles away. As such, Kiribati's EEZ does not cut across the claims of any other nations and therefore is not subject to legal dispute.

Interestingly, the tiny nation is in fact 100 times smaller than the United Kingdom. function loadOvpScript(){let el=document.createElement('script');el.

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