In 1947 Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, was made the administrative capital.
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After World War II, the capital was established on Tarawa, first in Betio island then near Bairiki.
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In the same year, Fanning Island and Washington Island were included in it together with the islands of the Tokelau or Union Islands; Christmas Island was included in 1919 but was contested by the US.
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It was founded in December 1938 by Henry Evans Maude, a British colonial officer, as one of the three villages established by the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme after the group were annexed into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1937.
After joining the Colonial Office, he became a cadet administrative officer in the Gilberts (1914) and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926.
In this capacity, he had overall responsibility for the British colonies and protectorates in the region, namely the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands (now Kiribati and Tuvalu), and over the British participation in the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).