Map - Howland Island (Howland Island)

Howland Island (Howland Island)
Howland Island is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1700 nmi southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. Together with Baker Island it forms part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The island has an elongated cucumber-shape on a north–south axis, 1.40 x 0.55 mi, and covers 1 mi2.

Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of the entire island and the surrounding 32074 acre of submerged land. The island is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an insular area under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.

The atoll has no economic activity. It is perhaps best known as the island Amelia Earhart was searching for but never reached when her airplane disappeared on July 2, 1937, during her planned round-the-world flight. Airstrips constructed to accommodate her planned stopover were subsequently damaged, not maintained and gradually disappeared. There are no harbors or docks. The fringing reefs may pose a maritime hazard. There is a boat landing area along the middle of the sandy beach on the west coast, as well as a crumbling day beacon. The island is visited every two years by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The climate is equatorial, with little rainfall and intense sunshine. Temperatures are moderated somewhat by a constant wind from the east. The terrain is low-lying and sandy: a coral island surrounded by a narrow fringing reef with a slightly raised central area. The highest point is about six meters above sea level.

There are no natural fresh water resources. The landscape features scattered grasses along with prostrate vines and low-growing pisonia trees and shrubs. A 1942 eyewitness description spoke of "a low grove of dead and decaying kou trees" on a very shallow hill at the island's center. In 2000, a visitor accompanying a scientific expedition reported seeing "a flat bulldozed plain of coral sand, without a single tree" and some traces of buildings from colonization or World War II building efforts, all wood and stone ruins overgrown by vegetation.

Howland is primarily a nesting, roosting and foraging habitat for seabirds, shorebirds and marine wildlife. The island, with its surrounding marine waters, has been recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports seabird colonies of lesser frigatebirds, masked boobies, red-tailed tropicbirds and sooty terns, as well as serving as a migratory stopover for bristle-thighed curlews.

 
Map - Howland Island (Howland Island)
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Country - 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 (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.
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