The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit the rainforests of Borneo and one of the world’s most remote inhabited islands on their second Royal tour as a couple.
They will take in Singapore, Malaysia and the Solomon Islands before staying overnight on the Pacific Island of Tuvalu, which is halfway between Hawaii and Australia and covers an area of just 10 square miles.
They will be the first members of the Royal family to visit the Commonwealth country since the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh sailed there on Britannia in 1982.
Tuvalu, the world’s fourth-smallest country, is home to just 10,000 people and most of it is barely 2ft above sea level, meaning it could cease to exist if sea levels continue to rise because of the melting of the polar ice caps.
Visitors who arrive by sea, including the Queen on her visit, are traditionally carried ashore, shoulder-height, in canoes, but because the Royal couple will be flying to the island’s tiny airport they will instead be garlanded with flowers.
Tuvalu is a circular archipelago of tiny islands with some of the best diving locations in the world, and is barely wider than a six-lane motorway for much of its length. The couple are expected to stay in the island’s only hotel, which has 16 rooms.
St James’s Palace announced that the couple will arrive in Singapore on September 11, moving on to Kuala Lumpur and the Malaysian province of Sabah, Borneo, and flying to Tuvalu via the Solomon Islands, finishing the tour on the Polynesian island on September 19
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