The Republic of Kiribati is a collection of 33 coral atolls located in the Pacific Ocean. According to the CIA World Factbook, it lies generally halfway between Hawaii and Australia, though more closely near Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Fiji. The nation operates as a republic based on English common law and limited customary law. It is led currently by President Anote Tong (42% support in the last 2012 election, has been in power since 2003). Kiribati is very small, with a total of just 811 sq. kilometers. It includes 3 groups of islands – Gilbert, Line and Phoenix Islands – dispersed across around 3.5 million sq. km. The nation is approximately four times the size of Washington DC. While in a warm and tropical climate, only 2.5~% of the land is arable; the labor force is primarily focused on services (mostly tourism, plus significant foreign aid and remittances from ships) rather than agriculture, etc. It does, however, have a very low unemployment rate of just 2%. Independence from the U.K. was obtained on the 12th of July, 1979.