Kiribati is the only Oceanian country whose islands lie in all four hemispheres. Its territory crosses both the Equator and the 180th meridian, placing parts of the nation north and south of the Equator and east and west of the prime meridian’s opposite line.
Kiribati is an archipelagic state made up of 32 atolls and the raised coral island of Banaba. Its three main island groups—the Gilbert, Phoenix, and Line Islands—are scattered across a huge area of the central Pacific rather than clustered around one landmass.
The country’s unusual east–west spread also creates an interesting time-zone fact. In 1995, Kiribati moved the International Date Line eastward around its eastern islands so that the country would share the same calendar day. This helped its Line Islands become among the first inhabited places to welcome a new day.
The answer is sometimes confused with countries that cross the Equator, such as Indonesia or Ecuador, but those do not also extend across both sides of the 180th meridian in the same way.