Arorae (spelling variants: Arorai, Arurai; also known as Hope Island or Hurd Island) is an atoll in Kiribati located near the equator. Arorae is the southernmost island in the Gilbert Islands group. It has a population of just over a thousand inhabitants on 9.5 square kilometres.
Geography
Arorae is the southernmost atoll in the Gilbert Islands, 600 km south from South Tarawa. The atoll's area is . The atoll is a low and flat coralline island with an elongated shape. It is 9 km in length and 1 km wide, at its widest point. There is no lagoon, like in bigger atolls of the Gilberts.
Since the 2015 census, Arorae is the less populated island of the Republic of Kiribati but Banaba and Canton Island. The population at the November 2020 census was the lowest ever, 983 inhabitants from 208 households. The population at the previous 2015 census was 1,011, most of whom (98.5%) are Protestants of Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC) and all of them are I-Kiribati (no declared mixed races or others).
Culture
Arorae culture has been influenced by Samoa more than most of the other atolls in the Gilbert Islands (Kiribati). This is because Samoan missionaries from Upolu settled there and converted the island's residents to the Protestant Church. The Samoan presence in Arorae shaped their style of dancing, making Arorae known for the "taubati", a dance using claps, slaps, and stomps as visual percussion to accompany local songs.
Because it is a more remote outer-island within the Gilbert line of the Republic of Kiribati, it is known for maintaining a more traditional culture held together mostly under the authority of "unimwane" (village elders).
Arorae fishermen are skilled at catching large tuna and shark using hand lines. Arorae fisherman usually save the dorsal shark fin to export for shark fin soup; however, the island has a strict law against cutting the dorsal fin of any shark without taking the entire shark ashore for food.