As people may know it, Caroline Island lies near the southeastern end of the line islands, a string
of atolls extending across the equator, 2,400 km south of the Hawaiian Islands in the central Pacific
Ocean Republic of Kiribati and its crescent-shaped atoll has a land area of 699 hectares.
The atoll is known as the first place on Earth to see the sunrise each day. In 1998, The United
Nations rated Caroline Island as one of the most unspoiled islands in the world.

A 1995 realignment of the International Date Line made Caroline Island the first point of land on
Earth to reach 1 January 2000 on the calendar. Located in the easternmost land and in the earliest
time zone, Caroline Island is the first land to see the sunrise. Just as Caroline Island would see
dawn at the earliest, Caroline University took it symbolically and named it after that to be the
institution to educate global leaders at the frontline to serve the community and the world.