ABAIANG ATOLL

also spelled Apaiang, also called Apia, formerly Charlotte Island, coral atoll of the Gilbert Islands, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Comprising six islets in the northern Gilberts with a total land area of 6 square miles (16 square km), the atoll has a lagoon (16 by 5 miles [26 by 8 km]) that provides sheltered anchorage. Captain Thomas Gilbert, its European discoverer (1788), named it Matthew's Island, after the owner of his ship, the Charlotte. He called the lagoon Charlotte Bay and the main islet Point Charlotte. Subsequent errors in identification led to the island's being known as Charlotte Island. The area's first influential missionary, the American Hiram Bingham, arrived there in 1857. The atoll, occupied by the Japanese in 1941-43, was subsequently used by U.S. forces as a base for attacking the Marshall Islands. The administrative centre and main village is Taburao. Copra is exported. Pop. (1990) 5,314.