Religion and History in Tuvalu

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Tuvalu, nine atolls and reef islands strung across the central Pacific with a total land area smaller than most cities, is among the most thoroughly Christian nations on earth, close to ninety seven per cent by the most recent census. That faith arrived with the London Missionary Society in the 1860s and took the local form of the Congregational Christian Church of Tuvalu, known simply as the Church of Tuvalu or by its Tuvaluan name, Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu.

Independence from the United Kingdom came on 1 October 1978, ending the joint Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony after a 1974 referendum split the two peoples along ethnic and linguistic lines. Tuvalu remains a Commonwealth realm, and rising sea levels around its low coral atolls have made it one of the most visible faces of climate vulnerability among small island states, a theme its government has raised at the United Nations for decades, its Christian identity and its existential exposure to the sea now equally central to how Tuvalu presents itself internationally.