Nauru

I stumbled across The Republic of Nauru a few days ago. The fourth smallest country in the world and comprised of one, almost wholly strip-mined, tiny Pacific island and populated by 13,000 obese, yet incredibly poor, people. I thought it was an elaborate but fictional Wikipedia article to start off with but it turns out it is a real place. The history of the place sounds like the plot of a bad movie. Bizarre. The Lonely Planet (bearing in mind this is a pro-travel website) synopsis is brilliant.