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The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands () are a chain of 11
atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...
s (with partly or fully enclosed
lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
s, except Vostok and Jarvis) and
coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...
island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...
s (with a surrounding
reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...
) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands. Eight of the atolls are parts of
Kiribati Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean. Its permanent population is over 119,000 as of the 2020 census, and more than half live on Tarawa. The st ...
. The remaining three— Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll—are
territories of the United States Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions and dependent territory, dependent territories overseen by the federal government of the United States. The American territories differ from the U.S. states and Indi ...
grouped with the
United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a statistical designation applying to the minor outlying islands and groups of islands that comprise eight United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Isla ...
. The Line Islands, all of which were formed by volcanic activity, are one of the longest island chains in the world, stretching from northwest to southeast. One of them, Starbuck Island, is near the geographic center of the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
(). Another, Kiritimati, has the largest land area of any atoll in the world. Only Kiritimati, Tabuaeran, and Teraina have a permanent population. Besides the 11 confirmed atolls and islands, Filippo Reef is shown on some maps, but its existence is doubted. The International Date Line passes through the Line Islands. The ones that are parts of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forward
time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...
, UTC+14:00. The time of day in these atolls is 24 hours ahead of the state of
Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
in the United States, which uses UTC−10:00, and 26 hours ahead of some other islands in
Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...
, such as Baker Island, which uses UTC−12:00.


Overview

Copra and pet fish are the islands' main export products (along with seaweed). Archaeologists have identified the remains of coral
Marae A ' (in Māori language, New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian language, Tahitian), ' (in Tongan language, Tongan), ' (in Marquesan language, Marquesan) or ' (in Samoan language, Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves reli ...
platforms and/or village complexes on several of the islands, including the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls, Teraina Island, Malden, Millennium Atoll and Flint Island. These remains are dateable as far back as the 14th century, and show that the inhabitants of the Line Islands were likely permanent or at least semi-permanent. Most 18th-century visitors to these isles overlooked these telltale signs of former Polynesian settlement. This included Captain Cook, who landed on Christmas Island (now called Kiritimati) in 1777, as well as Captain Fanning, who visited Teraina (Washington Island) and Tabuaeran (Fanning Atoll) in 1798. In the 19th century,
whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...
ships were regular visitors to the islands. They came in search of water, wood and provisions. The first whaler recorded to have visited one of them was the ''Coquette'', which docked at Kiritimati (then called Christmas Island) in 1822. In 1888, the United Kingdom was planning to lay the Pacific cable, and annexed the islands with a view to using Tabuaeran (then Fanning Island) as one of the relay stations for the cable. The cable was laid and was operational between 1902 and 1963 (except for a short period in 1914). In 1916, the British annexed Fanning and Washington islands, making them part of the British colony of the
Gilbert and Ellice Islands The Gilbert and Ellice Islands (GEIC as a colony) in the Pacific Ocean was part of the British Empire from 1892 to 1976. It was a British protectorate, protectorate from 1892 to 12 January 1916, and then a crown colony, colony until 1 January 1 ...
. In 1919, they annexed Christmas Island to the same colony. The Line Islands occasionally featured briefly in the biennial reports furnished by the Colony's resident commissioner to the Colonial Office and Parliament in London (see, for example, the reports submitted in 1966 and 1967Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. (1969). Report for the Years 1966 and 1967. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.). The United States contested the British annexations, based on the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856, which allowed for very wide-ranging territorial claims. It relinquished these claims only in 1979, when it entered into the Treaty of Tarawa, which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the Line Islands chain.


List of atolls, islands and reefs

Geographically, the Line Islands is divided into three subgroups: the Northern, Central, and Southern Line Islands (however, the Central Line Islands are sometimes grouped with the Southern Line Islands). The table below lists the islands from north to south. Note: *The lagoon areas marked with an asterisk are included in the land areas of the previous column because, unlike typical lagoons in atolls, they are inland waters completely sealed off from the sea.


Time zone realignment

On 23 December 1994, the Republic of Kiribati announced a change of
time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...
for the Line Islands, to take effect from 31 December 1994. This adjustment effectively moved the International Date Line more than to the east within Kiribati, which placed all of Kiribati on the Asian or western side of the date line, despite the fact that Millennium Island's longitude of 150 degrees west corresponds to UTC−10:00 rather than to its official time zone of UTC+14:00. Millennium Island is now at the same time as the Hawaiian Islands ( Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone), but one day ahead. This move made Millennium Island (then Caroline Island) the easternmost land in the earliest time zone (by some definitions, the easternmost point on Earth), and one of the first points of land which saw sunrise on 1 January 2000 – at 5:43 am, as measured by local time. The move was the fulfilment of a campaign promise by Kiribati President
Teburoro Tito Teburoro Tito (born 25 August 1953) is an I-Kiribati politician and diplomat who served as the third president of Kiribati from 1994 to 2003. Early life Teburoro Tito was born in Tanaeang, a village in Tabiteuea North, on 25 August 1952 or 1953. ...
. Previously, the country straddled the Date Line, thus being constantly in two different days. Kiribati officials later capitalised on the nation's new status as owners of the first land to see sunrise in 2000. Other Pacific nations, including
Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...
and New Zealand's
Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ; Moriori language, Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island, administered as part of New Zealand, and consisting of about 10 islands within an approxima ...
, protested the move, objecting that it interfered with their own claims to be the first land to see dawn in the year 2000. In 1999, to further capitalise upon the massive public interest in celebrations marking the arrival of the year 2000, Caroline Island was officially renamed Millennium Island. Although the island is uninhabited, a special celebration was held there to mark the occasion. It featured performances by native Kiribati entertainers and was attended by Kiribati's President Tito. Over 70 Kiribati singers and dancers travelled to Millennium Island from the capital, South Tarawa, accompanied by approximately 25 journalists. The celebration, which was broadcast worldwide by satellite, had an estimated audience size of as many as one billion viewers.


See also

*
List of islands in the Pacific Ocean The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...
*
Polynesian Triangle The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawaii (''Hawaiʻi''), Easter Island (''Rapa Nui'') and New Zealand (''Aotearoa''). This is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia. Outsi ...


References


External links

*
National Geographic – Southern Line Islands Expedition, 2009
{{Authority control Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean Atolls of the Pacific Ocean Disputed islands Geography of Micronesia Pacific islands claimed under the Guano Islands Act Islands of Oceania Archipelagoes of the United States Eastern Indo-Pacific Marine ecoregions