Which district is Nauru's de facto capital?

Which district is Nauru’s de facto capital? Yaren is the answer.

Yaren is one of Nauru’s 14 administrative districts and serves as the country’s governmental centre. Parliament House, central administration offices, the police and fire stations, and foreign diplomatic missions are located there. Nauru International Airport is also in the district.

Strictly speaking, Nauru has no officially designated capital city. The country has no cities at all in the usual legal sense, so Yaren is described as the de facto capital because national institutions are concentrated there. Aiwo is sometimes mistakenly listed as the capital, but it is another district immediately west of Yaren.

The district was formerly known as Makwa or Moqua, names connected with Moqua Well, an underground freshwater lake. Yaren is also an electoral constituency and returns two members to Nauru’s Parliament.