Talk:Christmas Island

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This article contains material from the CIA World Factbook which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.

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[edit] Registrars claim

Regarding the claim about the registrars: I was under the impression that everyone knew the name on goatse.cx (nsfw). I have forgotten it, however. It was mentioned on Slashdot at some point, I think. -Xoder 18:04, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Demographics and People sections

Aren't the sections titled "Demographics" and "People" essentially the same, except "Demographics" is more up-to-date? Kamezuki 14:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Population

The demographics section says there are 396 Christmas Islanders. The opening paragraph says, "It maintains about 1500 resident who live in a number of towns..."

Which is correct? Jonathunder 15:28, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)

[edit] Claims of Singapore

I deleted the following text from the article:

"Because of Australia, Singapore lost its soverignty-Christmas Island. Had it not been for Australia,Singapore's land area would have been larger. The sovereignty of Christmas Island should be reverted back to Singapore."

This is obviously not neutral point of view. Has the government of Singapore, or any political group within Singapore, ever requested that Christmas Island revert to Singapore's sovreignty? If so, that is material that should go in the text. --Jfruh 16:11, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Haha. No, of coz not. I wonder how many Singaporeans even know about the existance of such an island. Btw, perhaps we should mention something which goes something like "In 1957 the Australian government acquired Christmas Island from the Singapore Government for a compensation of 2.9 million pounds" as sourced from Christmas Island History, as the text made no mention of this?--Huaiwei 17:26, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! I've added the text. --Jfruh 19:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

actually, what does australia want with christmas island? :) regardless, singapore wouldn't be able to claim the island for long if it held on to it, seeing a lack of a navy; at best, singapore could do is to 'loan the island'. but the couple of millions gain from 'a sale' is something more useful to singapore. i just wonder if anyone in the christmas island has been to singapore... -_- Akinkhoo 15:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

The current Australian government sees a great value in Christmas Island as part of its activity in cutting back the number of refugees who arrive without visas. I note the link above to Singapore history does not work and is not in the article. The payment to Singapore needs a reference. --Bduke 21:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1997 or not

Can someone check the last edit? Daniel Quinlan 05:56, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Please stop mucking with subjects you don't know about. "Called" is exactly the right verb, just as you might call Guadeloupe and Martinique the "French Antilles" - they are still separate territories. 63.209.14.211 23:23, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

hey christmas people, i just want to know the average income please could you inform me as soon as possible

say hi to sant sant!!! lovelove jp

[edit] Education System

What sort of Education System is available on Christmas Island? Are there any Universities? 129.252.234.61 06:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC) (*Kat* (who has lost her pw--again)

I would say it goes up to High School, then it would be local training, with the probability of flying to Perth to go to University or TAFE. - Boochan 03:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Postage stamps

There are some stamps printed with "Christmas Island" on top and "Australia" at the bottom. Are these stamps of the Christmas Island, or of Australia? — Insta ntnood 20:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

These stamps are probably printed in/for use in Christmas Island (hence the top) but are usable all over Australia (hence the bottom). novacatz 06:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Are the Chinese zodiac stamps printed every year? — Insta ntnood 09:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Seem to be a couple new zodiac stamps each year. Both Christmas Island and Australia stamps have been valid in each place since 1993. They are not printed on the island. The cynical might suggest that Christmas Island stamps are now just a ploy to get more money out of collectors, but of course only small corrupt African nations would do something so transparently shabby! :-) Stan 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

Two paragraphs:

During the 1872-76 Challenger expedition to Indonesia, naturalist Dr John Murray carried out extensive surveys. At his urging, the British Admiralty annexed the 135 square kilometre island on 6 June 1888. But it was not until 1888 that Christmas Island was settled, when the Clunies-Ross brothers from neighbouring Cocos-Keeling Islands (some 900 kilometres to the south west) established a settlement at Flying Fish Cove to collect timber and supplies for the growing industry on Cocos.

vs.

[In 1888... ] the rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir John Murray for examination were many of nearly pure phosphate of lime, a discovery which led to annexation of the island by the British Crown in June 1888. Soon afterwards, a small settlement was established in Flying Fish Cove by G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands, and phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from Singapore, China, and Malaysia.

So. Did Murray examine the stuff in situ in the 1870s and recommend the annexation, or did he examine samples brought back to him ten years later and then recommend the annexation? These two disagree... Shimgray | talk | 17:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed that the history section gets a bit repetitive in the few paragraphs after the settlement of the island by the British? 23:48, 2 July 2006 (GMT)

[edit] Nuclear Testing

What about the 1950s nuclear testing?? - Zebramatt 13:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

That was the other Christmas Island. FiggyBee 12:57, 15 May 2006(UTC)

Exactly. As far as I'm seeing in all the info I gathered, the nuclear tests were in the Pacific ocean, in Kiritimati. Martin

I have removed the references to nuclear testing regarding this Christmas Island. Scott Clarkson 01:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] infobox

I started to fill out an infobox for the island. It is located at Template:Country infobox data Christmas Island. Please feel free to fill in the blanks. Hopefully it will be full enough to be placed on the article page soon. MJCdetroit 14:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Location image

This article needs an image showing the location of the island. Qutezuce 09:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Added Kmusser 15:53, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Sonic the Hedgehog' insertion

Mr. Negotiator added a link to Sonic the Hedgehog under a new 'Famous People from Christmas Island' section. I deleted it thinking that it was simple vandalism. Mr. Negotiator reinserted it and informed me he intended it as a serious edit.

I am now removing it again on the justification of the following argument:

'Sonic the hedgehog' is a fictional cartoon character. Details about this character may be relevant in an article dealing with fiction but are not relevant in an article dealing with real-world fact. In other words, it is relevant to state that he was (fictionally) born on Christmas Island in the Sonic article but not that he is a 'famous person' from Christmas Island in this article because it is simply not true. Oska 00:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I felt that a list of people/characters (which, if you notice, I put after your 1st deletion), as no babies had been born on Christmas Island since 1998, would be most interesting. As I could only find one person/character, I decided to put him on anyway for a bit of interest. After all, how many people know that Sonic the Hedghog was born on christmas island? I think that if the list had a chance to be built up and added to (without it being deleted every five minutes), it would make a witty and entertaining addition, as no where else seems to have one. Mr Negotiator 10:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

As a proposed compromise, I have added a Topics Of Interest section to the article, which can be found in most articles about countries (ie: France, Latvia). The list contains both famous people from christmas island, and fictional characters from christmas island, but can also contain sections like Sports on Christmas Island, or Holidays on Christmas Island, as can be seen in the Latvia article. I believe that this solution sorts out the disagreement, as now the article contains real world facts, and a section that can be found in many similar articles, but still allows a reader to find the infomation. I hope this works for everyone. Mr Negotiator 11:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Does List Of Fictional Characters From Christmas Island really warrant a seperate article when it only has one entry? Foolish Child 10:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Seeing as Oska objected to the inclusion of Fictional Characters From Christmas Island, I think that this is a good compromise. Feel free to add others, though I couldn't find anyone else but Sonic. Th e Halo (talk) 22:04, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Noting the appearance of "Santa Claus" in the article "The North Pole" as a "Cultural Reference", the reference to a mythical hedgehog from Christmas Island doesn't seem too far off. Scott Clarkson 10:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capital

Is The Settlement the capital, or is Flying Fish Cove? Most sources say The Settlement, but some say Flying Fish Cove. Flying Fish Cove seems to be the largest community on the island. Oz Lawyer 17:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Railway

I understand there was once a railway linking north to south along the eastern end of Christmas Island, and that large parts still remain, but in ruins. This should get a mention in "Communications and Transportation", but I don't know enough to write it! Timothy Titus 04:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shire President

Is the mayor (Gordon Thompson) really a soap actor from The Young and the Restless? I find that hard to believe. PJY 01:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

so did I, and disambiguated him. --Roisterer 02:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Wonder of the natural world" POV

I re-added this removed bit (and noted that "it has been called one of the wonders of the natural world"). I cited it to an Australian website. It could be cited to many other sites, but I figured one would be enough. Lexicon (talk) 22:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religion/Ethnicity

It's not possible that Buddhists make up 90% of the population when Chinese only make up 70% of the population. Malays and Europeans are almost homogeneously Muslims and Christians respectively. So which figure is to be trusted- 70% Chinese or 90% Buddhists?

So... Only Chinese people are allowed to be Buddhist? Utisoft 14:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The article states that "The ethnic composition is 70% Chinese, 20% European and 10% Malay". Given that this is true, if 90% are Buddhists then at least 50% of the Europeans must be Buddhists. This would contradict the claim above that "Malays and Europeans are almost homogeneously Muslims and Christians respectively." J ɪ m p 04:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC) I have put new figures in based on the CIA factbook. J ɪ m p 05:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for addition of external link

I have started off a tourism section which I hope others will add to. I propose the following travel wiki which presents more tourist related information (yes, I do run the project, hence why I am suggesting it rather than just adding it) Christmas Island. The two sites have incompatible licenses hence why the information cannot go directly into wikipedia. What do people think? PSBennett 15:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)PSBennett

Sorry to ask again but can anyone help me with this? PSBennett

At the suggestion of User:JJL I am adding the link after asking for thoughts twice. I hope that is ok! PSBennett 14:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)PSBennett

[edit] Measurements

According to http://shire.gov.cx/ "Christmas Island is an Australian Non-self Governing External Territory, located in the Indian Ocean on the rim of South East Asia, 360km south of Java and 2600 km North West of Perth." The article's intro had said 2,360 but the Geography section agrees with the source. Which is correct? I've assumed 2600 to be & fixed the page accordingly.
There also seems to be an issue with false precision here.
- This 2,360 km figure is converted to 1,466 mi. It should be rounded to the nearest 10 mi if the original is to the nearest 10 km. However, even this is rather blind to the facts that neither the island nor the city are point-like but measure on the order of 15-25 km across therefore anything more precise than this should be treated with caution. This is rather a moot point if we're going with the 2600 km figure noted above.
- The conversion of 500 km to 310 mi was similarly dubious.
- The article had given two conflicting values for area in square miles viz. 52.1 (twice) & 51.4. The first may be a conversion from 135 km². The second may be a mistake. The CIA factbook gives 135 km² conversion to square miles gives 52.1237914 sq mi. This should be rounded off to the nearest square mile (i.e. to 52 sq mi) not to the nearest 0.1 sq mi (i.e. 52.1 sq mi). 0.1 sq mi = 0.258998811 km² < 1 km².
- In the Geography section we have "The island is the flat summit of a submarine mountain more than 4,572 m (15,000 feet) high, the depth of the platform from which it rises being about 14,000 feet (4267 m) and its height above the sea being upwards of 305 m (1,000 feet)." I smell a big rat here. These figures appear to be conversions from imperial to metric rounded to the nearest metre - the nearest hectometre would be pushing it.

J ɪ m p 05:31, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Referendum of November 6th, 1999 in external Australian territories

Please anybody give me a reference on source (on this page) about and Republican referendum on Christmas island. --User:212.98.173.133 14:43 28 July 2007.

[edit] swapping infoboxes

We should replace {{Infobox Country}} with {{Australia state or territory}} Chris 08:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coat of Arms

I am not sure why Image:Coat_Of_Arms_of_Christmas_Island.svg keeps on getting removed from the infobox by anonymous IP addresses. Any kind of controversy about it? Wongm (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear all, I am from Christmas Island and we don't have a coat of arms. This is the reason why I have been deleting it.

user: gregoryignatiushu —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregoryignatiushu (talk • contribs) 15:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that I don't believe you or anything, then what is the image that masquerades as it then? The only 'offical' thing I have managed to turn up is the Austflag site that says a design competition was held, but doesn't say about the results. It also says the flag is unofficial as well. The CIA factbook doesn't mention a Coat of Arms, but does mention the flag. Wongm (talk) 08:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The flag is official. It was adopted by an act of parliament(australia) non Territory day 2002. Look at http://www.christmas.shire.gov.cx/ for details. (talk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.56.81.5 (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)