London, Paris, Poland, Banana. These are the town names on Kiritimati Atoll in Kiribati. Locally, “ti” is pronounced “s”, thereby making this Christmas Atoll. By land area, this is the largest atoll in the South Pacific, perhaps due to the fact that geological processes have partially raised the island out of the ocean, giving it an uncharacteristically small lagoon compared to other atolls.

Like other islands in the area, this one was exploited for its remoteness and used for bomb testing. More recently, the Japanese space agency JAXA proposed building a spaceport here, which never materialized.

Satellite data from ESA’s Copernicus program. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.