Baker Island; Howland Island; Jarvis Island; Johnston Atoll; Kingman Reef; Midway Islands; Palmyra Atoll 🇺🇲

Baker, Howland and Jarvis Islands were claimed under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, Midway was annexed in 1867, and Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll came under US control by the turn of the 20th century. The largely uninhabited islands later served as military outposts before being set aside as wildlife refuges.

The Stewart Islands, called Sikaiana, were given to Kamehameha IV and became part of Hawaii. Residents later claimed United States citizenship on this basis, though the US makes no official claim of sovereignty and informally accepts the Solomon Islands claim.

The former Kingdom, by then a republic, was absorbed into the United States. The annexation carried with it outlying islands and underpinned later claims by Stewart Islands residents to US citizenship.

The programme placed American colonists on three equatorial islands to strengthen US claims. It established a human presence on otherwise uninhabited territory.

The renowned American pilot intended to land on the nearly barren Howland Island during her circumnavigation attempt but vanished. The episode gave the otherwise obscure island lasting international recognition.

The lagoon served as a staging point between Hawaii and American Samoa for commercial flying boats. It briefly gave the reef a role in trans-Pacific aviation.

Built in connection with trans-Pacific aviation, the field functioned for roughly eight years. It was abandoned after the Second World War.

The wartime airfield later carried significant commercial traffic during the second half of the 20th century. It made the atoll a functioning node in Pacific air transport.

Wake, home to an extinct flightless bird, saw heavy fighting early in the Pacific war. It later became an essential stopover for aircraft transiting the Pacific in the mid-20th century.

The settlers placed on Baker, Howland and Jarvis from 1936 were withdrawn as the Pacific war spread. The islands reverted to being uninhabited.

Renewed spending upgraded infrastructure on the remote atoll. The move restored Wake's strategic value as a Pacific staging point.

Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll constitute the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex, managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service of the US Department of the Interior. In January 2009 the surrounding waters were also proclaimed the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. These remote refuges are the most widespread collection of marine- and terrestrial-life protected areas on the planet under a single country's jurisdiction.

The ccTLD historically assigned to the Minor Outlying Islands was withdrawn. The islands retain their ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code UM and individual numerical subdivision codes.

Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge was included in a refuge complex with the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge and incorporated into the vast Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument proclaimed in 2006. The refuges sustain many endemic species including corals, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, seabirds, water birds, land birds, insects and vegetation not found elsewhere.

The airfield that had served wartime and commercial Pacific traffic ceased operations. Its closure ended the atoll's role in air transport.

The enumeration recorded the tiny transient populations of the islands. Apart from the 1940 census, no recorded modern Indigenous population has existed.

The ISO consolidated previously separate groupings into a single designation with code UM. From 1974 until 1986 five islands had been grouped as United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands under code PU, with Midway, Johnston and Wake holding separate codes.

Hawaiian statehood excluded Palmyra Atoll and Midway Atoll from the new state. Palmyra thereby remained an incorporated US territory distinct from the rest of the former Territory of Hawaii.