Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Micronesia, part of the Oceania region in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba of Kiribati about 300 km to the east. It lies northwest of Tuvalu, 1,300 km northeast of the Solomon Islands, east-northeast of Papua New Guinea, southeast of the Federated States of Micronesia and south of the Marshall Islands.