Which small Pacific country has Funafuti as its capital?

Tuvalu is the small Pacific country whose capital is Funafuti.

Funafuti is an atoll made up of numerous small islets surrounding a broad lagoon. Its main inhabited islet, Fongafale, contains Vaiaku, the administrative center where Tuvalu’s government operates. Strictly speaking, the capital is the entire Funafuti atoll rather than only Fongafale or Vaiaku.

Tuvalu became independent from the United Kingdom on October 1, 1978. It consists of nine low-lying islands and atolls in the central Pacific, between Hawaii and Australia. Funafuti is the country’s most populated and urbanized area, holding well over half of the national population.

The capital is also associated with important scientific history. In the late 1890s, Royal Society expeditions drilled into Funafuti’s coral structure to investigate Charles Darwin’s theory of how coral atolls form. Today, the atoll is frequently discussed in connection with sea-level rise because much of its land sits only a few metres above the ocean.