{"id":844385,"date":"2026-08-03T12:57:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844385\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T12:57:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T12:57:15","slug":"nauru-the-worlds-3rd-smallest-country-changes-its-name-to-naoero-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844385\/","title":{"rendered":"Nauru, the world\u2019s 3rd-smallest country, changes its name to Naoero \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The Pacific Island country of Nauru has changed its name to the Republic of Naoero, its president said, matching the spelling and pronunciation in the national language.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s international code will change from NRU to NRO and its people will be known as dei-Naoero instead of Nauruan. Commonly known abroad by the pronunciation of Now-roo, the new name is spoken as Now-ero.<\/p>\n

The move would return the remote South Pacific island nation to its traditional name, a statement posted Thursday to the government\u2019s Facebook account said. The country became known internationally as Nauru only because its local name was difficult for foreigners to pronounce and was a matter of convenience rather than one of choice, according to an earlier government statement.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"FILE
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFILE – Nauru President David Adeang speaks at the opening ceremony of Boao Forum of Asia, in Boao in southern China’s Hainan province on Thursday, March 28, 2024. (AP Photo\/Tian Macleod Ji, File)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis proposed change seeks to more faithfully honor our nation\u2019s heritage, our language, and our identity,\u201d President David Adeang said when he proposed the move to Parliament in January. The suggested constitutional amendment has been endorsed by lawmakers in the requisite two rounds of voting, though it wasn\u2019t immediately clear if the document had been formally amended.<\/p>\n

With 12,000 residents, Nauru is the world\u2019s third-smallest country by population size, after Tuvalu and Vatican City. The tiny coral limestone atoll was colonized by Germany and later administered by Australia before becoming an independent republic in 1968.<\/p>\n

It has faced tumultuous circumstances, with phosphate mining creating huge wealth on the island in the 1970s before the industry collapsed, bringing Nauru to the brink of economic ruin in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Now, the country is one of the world\u2019s most at risk from rising seas due to climate change, prompting the government to seek overseas investment through a paid citizenship program intended to fund the movement of people and infrastructure away from the encroaching ocean.<\/p>\n

The name change indicated \u201cthe beginning of renewed national pride,\u201d Adeang said in his latest announcement. When his government last voted for the move in May, the president announced a referendum to confirm it.<\/p>\n

The government said in last week\u2019s statement that after \u201cextensive discussions,\u201d lawmakers had decided a public vote wasn\u2019t needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile a referendum is intended to determine the will of the people, the name Naoero has never been lost, but rather waiting to be fully embraced,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The designation \u201cis already the identity of the people, is on the national coat of arms, and spoken in the community; and importantly is allowed by the Constitution,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The move makes the country the latest to signal a shift away from a colonial past by changing its name. The tiny African kingdom of Eswatini reverted to its historic name from Swaziland in 2018. Other countries have sought the switch as a sort of rebrand, as Turkey did when Ankara asked the United Nations in 2022 to begin calling the country T\u00fcrkiye, which the nation had long gone by at home.<\/p>\n

Nauru\u2019s decision will prompt the renaming of its national aircraft and ships. The government was already seeking to have other countries and international institutions recognize the shift, its statement said.<\/p>\n

The website of the United Nations records the country by its new name, noting the government had requested it be changed in June. Australia and New Zealand\u2019s foreign ministries as well as the U.S. and Chinese embassies in the region also designate the country as Naoero on their websites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) \u2014 The Pacific Island country of Nauru has changed its name to the Republic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-844385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}