United States Minor Outlying Islands | |
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Flag | |
Motto:
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Anthem: "The Star-Spangled Banner" | |
![]() Locations of the United States Minor Outlying Islands in the Pacific Ocean; note that Navassa Island is not located on this map. | |
Administrative center | Washington, D.C. |
Largest village | Wake Atoll |
National language | English |
Government | |
Joe Biden (D) | |
Area | |
• Total | 49.26 km2 (19.02 sq mi)(Unranked) |
• Water (%) | 88.6 |
Population | |
• 2009 estimate | 300(232nd) |
• 2000 census | 316 |
GDP (PPP) | estimate |
• Per capita | $46,381a(6th) |
Currency | United States dollar (US$) (USD) |
Time zone | UTC −12 to −10, −5, +12 |
ISO 3166 code | UM |
Internet TLD | .us b |
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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 (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island) and one in the Caribbean Sea (Navassa Island).
In 1936, a colonization program began to settle Americans on Baker, Howland, and Jarvis, but all three islands were evacuated in 1942 as a result of World War II. [1] [2]
ISO introduced the term "United States Minor Outlying Islands" in 1986. From 1974 until 1986, five of the islands (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll, and Kingman Reef) were grouped under the term United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands, with ISO 3166 code PU. The code of Midway Atoll was MI, the code of Johnston Atoll was JT, and the code of Wake Island was WK. Prior to 1986, Navassa Island, along with several small islands in the Caribbean Sea that are no longer under U.S. sovereignty, were grouped under the term United States Miscellaneous Caribbean Islands, with FIPS country code BQ.
The populated Stewart Islands, called Sikaiana and now effectively controlled by the Solomon Islands, are not included in official lists of U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. In 1856, the Kingdom of Hawaii Privy Council and King Kamehameha IV voted to accept their voluntary cession. The Kingdom later became the Republic of Hawaii, all of which was annexed by the United States in 1898. In 1959, the resulting federal U.S. Territory of Hawaii, excluding only Palmyra Atoll and Midway Atoll, became a U.S. state. Residents of the Stewart Islands, who are Polynesian like the native Hawaiians rather than Melanesian, claimed to be citizens of the United States since the Stewart Islands were given to King Kamehameha IV in 1856 and were part of Hawaii at the time of the United States' annexation in 1898. The U.S. federal and Hawaii state governments informally accept the recent claim of the Solomon Islands over the Stewart Islands, and the United States makes no official claim of sovereignty. [3]
Except for Palmyra Atoll, all of these islands are unincorporated unorganized territories of the United States. Currently, none of the islands have any permanent residents, although military personnel, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel, and temporarily stationed scientific and research staff are posted to some of the islands. The 2000 census counted 315 people on Johnston Atoll and 1 person on Wake Atoll. [4] The Territory of Palmyra Atoll is an incorporated territory, separated in 1959 from the rest of the former incorporated Territory of Hawaii when Hawaii became a state.
There has been no modern indigenous population, except at the 1940 census. During the late 2010s, the U.S. military began reinvesting in the airfield and other assets on Wake Island. [5]
The islands are grouped together as a statistical convenience. They are not administered collectively, nor do they share a single cultural or political history beyond being uninhabited islands under the sovereignty of the United States. They are all outside of the customs territory of the United States and have no customs duties. [6] Except for Midway Atoll, the Pacific islands are surrounded by large exclusive economic zones and are within the bounds of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
They are collectively represented by the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code UM. The individual islands have ISO 3166-2 numerical codes.
The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) ".um" has historically been assigned to the islands; however, the .um ccTLD was retired in January 2007. [7]
Most of the islands in the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands are closed to the public. Visitors to islands such as Jarvis Island need a permit. Palmyra Atoll is open to the public, but there is no easy way to reach it. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
Airports in the United States minor outlying islands provide critical emergency landing points across the vast Pacific Ocean for all types of aircraft, allow for important military presence in key strategic zones, and have limited scheduled commercial services. The following is a list of island airports with ICAO (IATA) codes:
Other airports include:
Three of the islands are listed with ports in the World Port Index, [19] with World Port Number:
Baker Island, Howland Island, and Jarvis Island each have a small boat landing place. Kingman Reef and Navassa Island have offshore anchorage only.
Atoll or island | Island area (km2) | Lagoon (km2) | Coordinates | NWR established | Acquired | FIPS Code [upper-alpha 1] | GEC [upper-alpha 2] [22] | ||
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Midway Atoll | 6.2 [23] | 40 | 28°13′N177°22′W / 28.217°N 177.367°W | 1988 April 22 [24] | 1867 August 28 | 74300 | MQ | ||
North Pacific Ocean, scattered isolated islands | |||||||||
Wake Island [upper-alpha 3] | 6.5 [25] | 6 | 19°18′N166°38′E / 19.300°N 166.633°E | 2009 January 16 [26] [27] | 1899 January 17 | 74450 | WQ | ||
Johnston Atoll | 2.63 [28] | 130 | 16°45′N169°31′W / 16.750°N 169.517°W | 1926 June 29 [29] | 1859 September 6 | 74200 | JQ | ||
North Pacific Ocean, Northern Line Islands | |||||||||
Kingman Reef | 0.03 [30] | 76 | 6°24′N162°24′W / 6.400°N 162.400°W | 2001 January 18 [31] | 1860 February 8 | 74250 | KQ | ||
Palmyra Atoll [upper-alpha 4] | 11.9 [32] | 15 | 5°53′N162°05′W / 5.883°N 162.083°W | 2001 January 18 [33] | 1912 February 21 | 74400 | LQ | ||
North Pacific Ocean, Northern Phoenix Islands | |||||||||
Howland Island | 1.6 [34] | – | 0°48′N176°37′W / 0.800°N 176.617°W | 1974 June 27 [1] | 1856 October 28 | 74100 | HQ | ||
Baker Island | 1.5 [35] | – | 0°12′N176°29′W / 0.200°N 176.483°W | 1974 June 27 [1] | 1856 October 28 | 74050 | FQ | ||
South Pacific Ocean, Central Line Islands | |||||||||
Jarvis Island | 4.5 [36] | – | 0°22′S160°01′W / 0.367°S 160.017°W | 1974 June 27 [2] | 1856 October 28 | 74150 | DQ | ||
Navassa Island [upper-alpha 5] | 5.4 [37] | – | 18°24′N75°01′W / 18.400°N 75.017°W | 1999 December 3 [38] | 1858 October 31 | 74350 | BQ | ||
Caribbean Sea, scattered isolated islets | |||||||||
Bajo Nuevo Bank [upper-alpha 6] | 0.02 | 155 | 15°53′N78°38′W / 15.883°N 78.633°W | 1869 November 22 | (none) | (none) | |||
Serranilla Bank [upper-alpha 7] | 0.02 | 1200 | 15°50′N79°50′W / 15.833°N 79.833°W | 1879 September 8 1880 September 13 | (none) | (none) | |||
U.S. Minor Outlying Islands | 40.26 | 267 | |||||||
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![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2019) |
Jarvis Island is an uninhabited 4.5 km2 (1.7 sq mi) coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Unlike most coral atolls, the lagoon on Jarvis is wholly dry.
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.
Midway Atoll is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory. The largest island is Sand Island, which has housing and an airstrip. Immediately to the east of Sand Island across the narrow Brooks Channel is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is Spit Island, a narrow reef.
Palmyra Atoll, also referred to as Palmyra Island, is one of the Northern Line Islands. It is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way between Hawaii and American Samoa. North America is about 3,300 miles northeast and New Zealand the same distance southwest, placing the atoll at the approximate center of the Pacific Ocean. The land area is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), with about 9 miles (14 km) of sea-facing coastline and reef. There is one boat anchorage known as West Lagoon, accessible from the sea by a narrow artificial channel.
This article contains links to lists of hospitals in the United States, including U.S. States, the national capital of Washington, D.C., insular areas, and outlying islands. Links to more detailed state lists are shown.
In 45 of the 50 states of the United States, the county is used for the level of local government immediately below the state itself. Louisiana uses parishes, and Alaska uses boroughs. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, some or all counties within states have no governments of their own; the counties continue to exist as legal entities, however, and are used by states for some administrative functions and by the United States Census bureau for statistical analysis. There are 3,242 counties and county equivalent administrative units in total, including the District of Columbia and 100 county-equivalents in the U.S. territories.
In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of the 50 states or the District of Columbia. This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three sovereign states each with a Compact of Free Association with the United States. The term also may be used to refer to the previous status of the Philippine Islands and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands when it existed.
Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and Indian reservations as they are not sovereign entities. In contrast, each state has a sovereignty separate from that of the federal government and each federally recognized Native American tribe possesses limited tribal sovereignty as a "dependent sovereign nation". Territories are classified by incorporation and whether they have an "organized" government through an organic act passed by the Congress. American territories are under American sovereignty and, consequently, may be treated as part of the United States proper in some ways and not others. Unincorporated territories in particular are not considered to be integral parts of the United States, and the Constitution of the United States applies only partially in those territories.
The Guano Islands Act is a United States federal law passed by the U.S. Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession, in the name of the United States, of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of another government. It also empowers the president of the United States to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories.
Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean.
An Island Commander is an official who is put in charge of an island, or an insular entity called after an island or an archipelago called Islands.
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 United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands is an obsolete term used to collectively describe Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll, all of them territories in the Pacific Ocean controlled by the United States by way of the Guano Islands Act.
Howland Island and Baker Island are two uninhabited U.S. atolls in the Equatorial Pacific that are located close to one another. Both islands are wildlife refuges, the larger of which is Howland Island. They are both part of the larger political territory of the United States Minor Outlying Islands and they are also both part of the larger geographic grouping of the Phoenix Islands. Each is a National Wildlife Refuge managed by a division of Interior, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. On January 6, 2009, U.S. President George W. Bush included both islands to the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to Oceania.
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