Tokelau

Tokelau is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls, Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo, with a combined land area of about 10 square kilometres. Swains Island, which belongs to the same archipelago, is the subject of a territorial dispute and is administered by the United States as part of American Samoa. Tokelau lies north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu and northwest of the Cook Islands, and it was previously known as the Union Islands and, until 1976, officially as the Tokelau Islands. It has a population of about 2,500, the fourth smallest of any sovereign state or dependency, and about 94 percent of people speak Tokelauan as their first language. The United Nations lists it as a non-self-governing territory, though Tokelauans have twice narrowly failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed for further self-determination. It has elected its own head of government, the Ulu-o-Tokelau, annually since 1993, and it became the first nation powered entirely by solar energy.