The United States Minor Outlying Islands are 11 mostly uninhabited islands in the Pacific and Caribbean that are US territories where residents do not pay federal taxes and are not represented in the US federal government. They were claimed under the Guano Islands Act, and only one island, Wake Island, is permanently inhabited by the US Navy and Army. The islands are administered by the Department of Insular Affairs with the United States Department of the Interior.
The United States Minor Outlying Islands consist of 11, mostly uninhabited islands in the Pacific (8 islands) and Caribbean (3 islands) that are considered insular areas of the United States. In other words, they are US territories where residents do not pay federal taxes and are not represented in the US federal government. The term is also a statistical designation defined by the 3166-1 code of the International Organization for Standardization, a powerful non-governmental organization whose standards are often adopted by international law, the United Nations and the US government.
The history of the US Minor Outlying Islands begins with the Guano Islands Act, passed by the US Congress in 1856. This law allowed any US citizen to claim uninhabited, unclaimed islands with deposits of guano for the US government. The guano would then be mined for use as a fertilizer, as synthetic fertilizer wasn’t invented until 1910. The US military would be responsible for defending the islands, just like any other US territory. Upon completion of guano mining, the United States would (in theory) relinquish its claim to the land. Over 100 islands were claimed under the Guano Islands Act and all but a few were subsequently abandoned.
As of 2008, only one of the islands, Wake Island in the Pacific, is permanently inhabited by the United States Navy and Army. The other islands have had transient military activities or small colonies over the last century. The Pacific Islands are as follows:
Midway Atoll, part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, declared a Marine National Monument in 2007,
Johnston Atoll, an arid atoll with an abandoned airstrip created mainly by coral dredging,
Wake Atoll, located in the far east, and home to a small army and navy base,
Kingman Reef, a largely submerged atoll with only a small strip of land),
Palmyra Atoll, a forested atoll owned by the Nature Conservancy, the only incorporated territory on the islands,
Jarvis Island, a small barren island with little foliage,
Baker Island, another small arid island, e
Howeland Island, a low-lying sandy island, best known as the island near which Amelia Earheart disappeared.
All islands are administered by the Department of Insular Affairs with the United States Department of the Interior.
Caribbean islands considered part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands include Navassa Island, a small island off the coast of Haiti that is claimed by both Haiti and a small group of Colombians who call the island a sovereign nation; the Baja Nuevo Bank, a small uninhabited sandbank; and Serranilla Bank, a larger, mostly submerged atoll with a few islands overloaded with military buildings that were used during the Cuban Missile Crisis. None of these islands have any appreciable plant or mineral resources and are currently uninhabited.
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