Butaritari

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Butaritari Atoll and part of Makin (upper right)

Butaritari is an atoll located in the Pacific Ocean island nation of Kiribati. Three kilometers to the northeast is a linear reef feature with three habitable islets (Makin, Kiebu, and Onne) known as Makin. Butaritari was called Makin Atoll by the U.S. military, and Makin was then known as Makin Meang or Little Makin to distinguish it. Now that Butaritari has become the preferred name for the larger atoll, speakers tend to drop the qualifier for Makin.

Butaritari atoll has a land area of 13.6 km² and a population of 4200 as of 2002, while Makin has a land area of 6.7 km² and a population of 1700.

It is one of the lushest of the "out islands" due to good rainfall. Typical annual rainfall is about 4m, compared with about 2m on Tarawa and 1m in the far south of Kiribati. Rainfall on Butaritari is enhanced during an El Niño.[link][link]

The atoll is roughly 4-sided and nearly 30 km across in the east west direction, and averages about 15 km north to south. The reef is more submerged and broken into several broad channels along the west side. Small islets are found on reef sections between these channels. The atoll reef is continuous but almost without islets along the north side. In the northeast corner, the reef is some 1.75 km across and with only scattered small islet development. Thus, the lagoon of Butaritari is very open to exchange with the ocean. The lagoon is deep and can accommodate large ships, though the entrance passages are relatively narrow. [link]

The south and southeast portion of the atoll comprises a nearly continuous islet, broken only by a single, broad section of interislet reef. These islets are mostly between 0.2 and 0.5 km across, but widen in the areas where the reef changes directions. Mangrove swamps appear well developed in these latter areas as well as all along the southern lagoon shore. Narrow islets is somewhat characteristic of Kiribati atolls running E-W. [link]

Bikati and Bikatieta islets occupy a corner of the reef at the extreme northwest tip of the atoll, bordering what may be a second small lagoon to the north of the main lagoon. Larger Bikati (2 by 0.5 km) harbors a village. The main village is Butaritari, population approximately 2000. This is the largest village outside of Tarawa.[link]

The runway on Butaritari has been extended to the full length of the old WW2 American strip (about 5000 feet?) and a service Tarawa - Butaritari - Majuro operates.[link]

Butaritari was a place of residence for Robert Louis Stevenson in his quest for a new life and the subject of a subsequent story.[link] In his book "In The South Seas" he devotes the majority of the second half to his obsevations and history of Butaritari and Makin. See [link] for free online copy.

1870-1914

Commercial and trading capital of the Gilberts until Burns Philp moved south and set themselves up in Tarawa - they followed the seat of political power south. The earliest trading companies were the Hamburg based DPHG with Pacific headquarters in Samoa and On Chong (Chinese traders with Australian connections via the goldfields).

1914-1941

Establishment of the Japanese trading company (Nanyo Boeki Kabushiki Kaisha) in Butaritari Village. Gradual decline of On Chong through the 1920's with low copra prices. Takeover of On Chong by WR Carpenter based in Rabaul.[link]

Butaritari atoll was the site of the initial thrust of the United States advance into the central Pacific in August 1942, when the U.S. Marine Raiders briefly took the island. In November 1943, elements of the U.S. 27th Infantry Division took the island, in the Battle of Makin.

External Links: [link] photos of people and a village

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