Christmas Island, formally known as the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory made up of the same-named island. It is situated in the Indian Ocean, about 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Java and Sumatra and around 1,550 kilometers (960 miles) north of the nearest point on the Australian peninsula. It is located 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) northwest of Perth and 1,327 kilometers (825 miles) south of Singapore. It covers 135 square kilometers (52 sq mi).
As of 2016, Christmas Island had a population of 1,843 people, the bulk of whom lived in towns on the island's northern rim. Flying Fish Cove is the principal settlement. Asian Australians of Chinese, Malay, and Indian heritage have historically made up the bulk of the population. Today, it is believed that over two-thirds of the island's population is of Straits Chinese descent (albeit only 21.2 percent of the population reported Chinese ancestry in 2016), with large numbers of Malays and European Australians and lesser numbers of Straits Indians and Eurasians. English, Malay, and different Chinese dialects are among the languages spoken. The island's principal faiths are Islam and Buddhism. The religion question in the Australian census is voluntary, and 28 percent of the population does not state their religious beliefs if they have any.
Richard Rowe of the Thomas was the first European to see Christmas Island in 1615. On Christmas Day (December 25, 1643), Captain William Mynors called it. It was initially populated in the late 1800s. Christmas Island's geographic isolation and history of limited human interference have resulted in a high degree of endemism among its flora and animals, which scientists and naturalists are interested in. The bulk of the island (63 percent) is protected as part of the Christmas Island National Park, which includes many regions of the primary monsoonal forest. Since 1899, the island has been mining phosphate, which was initially deposited as guano.