The Cook Islands can be divided into two groups: the Southern Cook Islands and the Northern Cook Islands. The country is located in Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean, about one-half of the way from Hawaii to New Zealand.
Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited, triangle-shaped reef, geologically an atoll, 9.0 nmi (20 km) east-west and 4.5 nmi (8 km) north-south, in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa. It has an area of 3 hectares and is one of the unincorporated territories of the United States in Oceania. The reef is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as the Kingman Reef National Wildlife Refuge.
Kiribati consists of 32 atolls and one island scattered over all four hemispheres in an expanse of ocean equivalent in size to the contiguous United States. The islands lie roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia in the Micronesian and Polynesian regions of the South Pacific. The three main island groupings are the Gilbert Islands, Phoenix Islands, and Line Islands. On 1 January 1995 Kiribati moved the International Date Line to include its easternmost islands and make it the same day throughout the country.
Kiritimati is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonology, in which the combination ti is pronounced s, giving.
The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands are a chain of 11 atolls and coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands. The island chain stretches northwest to southeast across 2,350 km (1,460 mi), making it one of the longest island chains in the world. It lies at the geographic center of the Pacific Ocean, near Starbuck Island. One of the atolls in the group, Kiritimati, has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Of the 11 atolls, all of which were formed by volcanic activity, only the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls and Teraina island have a permanent population. Eight of the atolls are parts of Kiribati. The remaining three—Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll—are territories of the United States grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code. The entry code is ISO 3166-2:UM. The minor outlying islands and groups of islands consist of eight United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean and one in the Caribbean Sea.
Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island, is an atoll that is part of the Line Islands of the central Pacific Ocean and part of Kiribati. The land area is 33.73 square kilometres, and the population in 2015 was 2,315. The maximum elevation is about 3 m (10 ft) above high tide.
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a group of unorganized, mostly unincorporated United States Pacific Island territories managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States Department of Commerce. These remote refuges are "the most widespread collection of marine- and terrestrial-life protected areas on the planet under a single country's jurisdiction". They protect many endemic species including corals, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, seabirds, water birds, land birds, insects, and vegetation not found elsewhere.
The wildlife of Maldives includes the flora and fauna of the islands, reefs, and the surrounding ocean.
The Northern Cook Islands is one of the two chains of atolls which make up the Cook Islands. Lying in a horizontal band between 9° and 13°30' south of the Equator, the chain consists of the atolls of Manihiki, Nassau, Penrhyn, Pukapuka, Rakahanga and Suwarrow, along with the submerged Tema Reef.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to Oceania.
The Maldives–Lakshadweep–Chagos Archipelago tropical moist forests is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in South Asia. It spans a chain of coralline islands in the Indian Ocean, including Lakshadweep, a union territory of India; the Maldives, an independent country; and the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom.
The Tongan tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion that includes the Tonga archipelago and Niue.
The Cook Islands tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion that covers the Southern Cook Islands in the Cook Islands.
The Tuamotu tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in the Tuamotu Archipelago of French Polynesia and the Pitcairn Islands.
The Western Polynesian tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in Polynesia. It includes Tuvalu, the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati, Tokelau, and Howland and Baker islands, which are possessions of the United States.
The Eastern Micronesia tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion in Micronesia. It includes the Marshall Islands, Banaba and the Gilbert Islands in Kiribati, Nauru, and Wake Island, a possession of the United States.
The Coral reefs of Kiribati consists of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, Banaba, which is an isolated island between Nauru and the Gilbert Islands. The islands of Kiribati are dispersed over 3.5 million km2 (1.4 million sq mi) of the Pacific Ocean and straddle the equator and the 180th meridian, extending into the eastern and western hemispheres, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres. 21 of the 33 islands are inhabited. The groups of islands of Kiribati are:
