Howland Island

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Howland Island
Howland Island astronaut picture
Howland Island astronaut picture
Waters Pacific Ocean
Geographical location 0 ° 48 '26 "  N , 176 ° 37' 1"  W Coordinates: 0 ° 48 '26 "  N , 176 ° 37' 1"  W.
Location of Howland Island
length 2.8 km
width 800 m
surface 2.6 km²
Highest elevation 6  m
Residents uninhabited
main place Itascatown ( historical )
Howland Island map
Howland Island map

The Howland Island ( English Howland Island , [ ˈhaʊlənd ]) is a small island in the Pacific , which is geographically in front of the Phoenix Islands and politically belongs to the outer areas of the United States . It is a so-called "non-incorporated territory" of the United States , which is assigned to the United States Minor Outlying Islands for statistical purposes .

Together with Baker Island, the island forms the only land area in the time zone UTC − 12 (International Date Line West, IDLW).

Howland Island is that area of ​​land on earth which, at 386 km, has the shortest distance to the counterpoint of the earth, the intersection of the equator with the 180 ° meridian.

geography

Howland Island is 3049 km southwest of Honolulu , about halfway from Hawaii to Australia , and is just 88.7 km north of the equator . It is 68.3 km away from neighboring Baker Island. Howland Island is an upscale atoll and is completely fringed by a coral reef . The now uninhabited island has a land area of ​​2.6 km² and is only six meters high. There are no natural fresh water sources .

history

Itascatown ruins
Amelia Earhart signal tower

The island is said to have been discovered around 1822 by George B. Worth, the captain of the whaler Oeno from Nantucket , who called it Worth Island , but this contact is poorly documented. The first sure discovery was made on December 1, 1828 by Captain Daniel McKenzie of the American whaler Minerva Smyth of New Bedford . Another sighting is that of George E. Netcher, the captain of the whaling ship Isabella on September 9, 1842.

On February 5, 1857, the island was occupied for the United States , citing the Guano Islands Act ; The mining of guano began in 1861 . When the guano deposits were exhausted in 1890, economic interest in this island ended. The amount of guano mined during this time is estimated at 85,000 to 100,000 tons.

In 1935 an attempt was made to colonize Howland Island (as well as Baker Island and Jarvis Island ) under the Baker, Howland and Jarvis Colonization Scheme . To this end, four people from Hawaii were brought to the island on the Itasca ship . The small settlement on the west side of the island was named after the ship, namely Itascatown .

Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart wanted to make a stopover on Howland Island when she circumnavigated the world by plane in 1937, but never got there. It has since been considered lost. In the same year, in her honor, the construction of a signal tower was started on the island, the shape of which is modeled on a lighthouse.

During the Second World War two of the four colonists died in a Japanese air raid on December 8, 1941. The two survivors were evacuated by the US Navy on January 31, 1942 . The settlement was destroyed in the air raid and not rebuilt.

Since the end of June 1974, Howland Island has been administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), an agency of the United States Department of the Interior , as Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge . Entering the island requires a special permit, which is generally only issued for scientific and educational purposes. The island is visited by the USFWS approximately every two years; the United States Coast Guard patrols the territorial waters around the island claimed by the United States at irregular intervals. Radio amateurs have received permission to radio from the island several times, provided that they took a USFWS employee to the island at their own expense, which reduced the high cost of regular visits. Together with six other American islands in the Pacific, the Howland Island nature reserve has been part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument since January 6, 2009 .

Flora and fauna

The flora of Howland Island is characterized by species poverty, as only heat and drought-resistant species can survive here. The vegetation consists of grasses , herbaceous plants and shrubs . In addition to various sea ​​birds that nest on the island, the green turtle and the hawksbill turtle also find food off the coast of the island. 324 species of fish and 109 species of hard corals were counted in the surrounding waters and reefs .

literature

  • Ralph Gerard Ward (Ed.): American activities in the central Pacific, 1790-1870. A history, geography and ethnography pertaining to American involvement and Americans in the Pacific taken from contemporary newspapers, etc. Volume 3 : Gaferut to Kwajalein . Gregg Press, Ridgewood, New Jersey 1967 (English).
  • Edwin Horace Bryan : American Polynesia: coral islands of the central Pacific . Tongg Publishing Company, Honolulu, Hawaii 1941 (reprinted from Honolulu Advertiser , September 11, 1939 to July 15, 1940).

Web links

Commons : Howland Island  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikimedia Atlas: Howland Island  - geographical and historical maps

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Distance from Howland Island to Honolulu. In: www.timeanddate.de. Time and Date AS, accessed May 20, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Don Palawski: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge: Comprehensive Conservation Plan . National Wildlife Refuge Complex, 2008, Chapter 3: Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Rationale - Goal 1 , p. 27 (English, accessible online at Data.gov [PDF; 1.5 MB ]).
  3. ↑ Don Palawski: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge: Comprehensive Conservation Plan . National Wildlife Refuge Complex, 2008, Chapter 4: Recent Cultural History - Guano Mining Era , p. 53 (English, accessible online at Data.gov [PDF; 1.5 MB ]).
  4. ^ US Unincorporated Possessions. Howland Island. In: World Statesmen.org. Retrieved May 20, 2017 (English).
  5. ↑ Wildlife & Habitat. Iceland Habitat section . In: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge. United States Fish and Wildlife Service , accessed May 26, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Wildlife & Habitat. Section reptiles . In: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge. United States Fish and Wildlife Service , accessed May 26, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Wildlife & Habitat. Fish section . In: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge. United States Fish and Wildlife Service , accessed May 26, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Marine Habitat. Corals section . In: Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge. United States Fish and Wildlife Service , accessed May 26, 2017 .