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Xydraus t1_j83dk2q wrote

Reply to comment by itiLuc in TIL the Pacific island nation of Nauru has been so damaged by phosphate mining that in 1964 Australia offered to repopulate the entire nation to Curtis Island near the Australian Coast. Nauru refused the offer in order to maintain their sovereignty and not become part of Australia. by triviafrenzy

I'm having trouble finding a place on that page where it says Nauru was one of the wealthiest nations on earth, do you have a quote?

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itiLuc t1_j83hplk wrote

Sure! The first line in the "economic performance" section states:

"In the years after independence in 1968, Nauru possessed the highest GDP per capita in the world due to its rich phosphate deposits."

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Xydraus t1_j850tjc wrote

That says GDP per capita, right? That's insanely different from being one of the wealthiest nations if your population is pretty low.

As a hypothetical with made up numbers, if your GDP is only ten million dollars, you'd be one of the poorest nations in the world, but if you've also only got ten people, then your GDP per capita would actually be the highest.

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smallbutlazy t1_j83gih6 wrote

Nauru became self-governing in January 1966, and following a two-year constitutional convention, it became independent on 31 January 1968 under founding president Hammer DeRoburt.[64] In 1967, the people of Nauru purchased the assets of the British Phosphate Commissioners, and in June 1970 control passed to the locally-owned Nauru Phosphate Corporation (NPC).[37] Income from the mines made Nauruans among the richest people in the world.[65][66] In 1989, Nauru took legal action against Australia in the International Court of Justice over Australia's administration of the island, in particular, Australia's failure to remedy the environmental damage caused by phosphate mining. Certain Phosphate Lands: Nauru v. Australia led to an out-of-court settlement to rehabilitate the mined-out areas of Nauru.[53][67]

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Apellosine t1_j83t6cb wrote

Citizens being among the richest in the world does not make a country "One of the wealthiest in the world" when their population is incredibly small.

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Xydraus t1_j8529fh wrote

That says richest people, but that doesn't say the country as the whole was one of the wealthiest - and given everything I've been reading about their low population I have a hard time imagining the nation itself had a comparable economy to major nations in the late 1960s.

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