| Market |
| Population: 10,544 (9 coral atolls; about halfway between Hawaii and Australia) |
| Overseas Tuvaluans: 2,400 |
| Languages: Tuvalu (official); about 900 Kiribati speakers on the island of Nui (north) |
| Samoan was the mission language; Tuvaluan can usually be understood by speakers of Tokelauan |
| 1,700 land line telephones |
| 2,000 cellular phones |
| 4,200 internet users (there are over 100,000 internet hosts due to the .tv lease) |
| The British colony was originally the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. The Gilberts were largely inhabited by Micronesians |
| and the Ellice Islands by Polynesians. They split in 1975. The Ellice islands became Tuvalu. There is still great bitterness. |
| In 2000 Tuvalu sold rights to its domain name (.tv) for $50 million for 12 years. |
| The Japanese government has provided some desalinization facilities. The Tuvaluan government has been negotiating |
| agreements with Australia and New Zealand to evacuate Tuvaluans if sea levels rise. Even if all the legalities can be |
| resolved and funding found, the logistics of this would be complex: there is one 1524 meter runway at Funafuti and it is 3 |
| meters above sea level. The commercial planes in use are 42-seat turboprops with a limited range. It is not clear how |
| inhabitants of the other 8 atolls (Nanumea is 300 miles away) would get themselves and their household goods to Funafuti. |
| Funafuti is itself 33 islets.Ships would likely have to choose between several passages into the lagoon depending on keel |
| depth and tide. Even then, although Tuvalu is surrounded by Nauru, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, the Solomon Islands |
| and Vanuatu it is not obvious where Tuvaluans would go first, let alone where they would eventually settle. |