United States Minor Outlying Islands

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The flag of the United States is used for all of the United States Minor Outlying Islands

Map showing the location of the islands in the Pacific Ocean (highlighted with red boxes)

The United States Minor Outlying Islands, a statistical designation defined by ISO 3166-1, consists of nine insular United States possessions. Palmyra Atoll is the only incorporated territory among them. Currently, none of them have any permanent inhabitants. Most recently, the census of population of 1980 gives population figures for three of the islands: Johnston Atoll (327), Midway Atoll (453), and Wake Island (302). The following censuses of 1990 and 2000 only note that there was no indigenous population, which was of course also true for all previous censuses.

They are grouped together entirely as a statistical convenience. They are not administered collectively, nor do they share a single cultural or political history beyond being currently uninhabited islands under the sovereignty of the United States.

They are collectively represented by the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code UM. The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) ".um" has historically been assigned to the islands; however, the .um ccTLD was retired in January of 2007 ^[1].

Atoll/Island	Island Area km²	Lagoon km²	Coordinates	NWR established
Northern Pacific Ocean, scattered isolated islands
Wake Island	7.4	6	19°18′N, 166°38′W	2006?
Johnston Atoll	2.52	130	16°45′N, 169°31′W	2005?
Northern Pacific Ocean, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Midway Atoll	5.18	40	28°13′N, 177°22′W	1998
Central Pacific Ocean, Northern Line Islands
Kingman Reef	0.03	60	6°24′N, 162°24′W	2001-01-18
Palmyra Atoll	6.56	15	5°53′N, 162°05′W	2001-01-18
Central Pacific Ocean, Central Line Islands
Jarvis Island	4.45	-	0°23′S, 160°01′W	1974
Central Pacific Ocean, Northern Phoenix Islands
Baker Island	1.24	-	0°12′N, 176°29′W	1974
Howland Island	1.62	-	0°48′N, 176°37′W	1974
Caribbean Sea
Navassa Island¹	5.2	-	18°24′N, 75°01′W	1999-09-30
Bajo Nuevo Bank²	0.02	155	15°53′N, 78°38′W	NA
Serranilla Bank²	0.02	1200	15°50′N, 79°50′W	NA
U.S. Minor Outlying Islands	34.2	251
¹ claimed by Haiti ² These islands are disputed with Colombia and considered part of San Andres and Providencia. Their areas are not included in the totals.
All islands are now National Wildlife Refuges (except Bajo Nuevo and Serranilla). The last one to be created was Wake Island National Wildlife Refuge (2006).

[edit] Sources and references

(incomplete)

^ Jesdanun, Anick. "Unused Domain Name for U.S. Isles Gone", Delaware News-Journal (reprint from the Associated Press), 24 January 2007. Retrieved on 2007-01-24.

[edit] See also

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Insular areas	American Samoa \| Guam \| Northern Mariana Islands \| Puerto Rico \| U.S. Virgin Islands
Minor outlying islands	Baker Island \| Howland Island \| Jarvis Island \| Johnston Atoll \| Kingman Reef \| Midway Atoll \| Navassa Island \| Palmyra Atoll \| Wake Island