An insular area is a United States territory United States territory is any extent of region under the jurisdiction of the federal government of the United States, including all waters . The United States has traditionally proclaimed the sovereign rights for exploring, exploiting, conserving, and managing its territory. This extent of territory is all the area belonging to, and under the, that is neither a part of one of the fifty U.S. states A U.S. state is any one of 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of commonwealth rather than state. State citizenship is nor the District of Columbia Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the, the federal district Federal districts are a type of administrative division of a federation, under the direct control of a federal government. They exist in various countries of the United States.^[1] The term insular possession is also sometimes used, but has fallen out of favor.

Because those insular areas that are inhabited are unincorporated territories Territories of the United States are one type of political division of the United States, administered directly by the federal government of the United States and not any part of a U.S. state. These territories were created to govern newly acquired land while the borders of the United States were still evolving. Territories can be classified by, their native-born inhabitants are not constitutionally entitled to United States citizenship Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The Immigration and Naturalization Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, citizenship of the United States. The requirements have become, under the Citizenship Clause The Citizenship Clause refers to the first sentence of Section 1 in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This clause represented Congress's reversal of that portion of the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that declared that African Americans were not and could not become citizens of the United States or enjoy any of the. However, Congress has extended citizenship rights to all inhabited territories and these citizens may vote and run for office in any U.S. jurisdiction in which they are residents. The sole exception is American Samoa American Samoa /əˈmɛrɪkən səˈmoʊə/ (Samoan: Amerika Sāmoa or Sāmoa Amelika) is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa). The main (largest and most populous) island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa Islands, Rose Atoll, and, whose people are U.S. nationals Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The Immigration and Naturalization Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, citizenship of the United States. The requirements have become, but not U.S. citizens; they are free to move around and seek employment within the whole United States without immigration restrictions, but cannot vote or hold office outside of American Samoa.

Residents of insular areas do not pay U.S. federal taxes To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law, but most pay taxes to the territorial governments, at the same rates as U.S. federal income taxes. Insular areas do not choose electors in U.S. presidential elections Elections for President and Vice President of the United States are indirect elections in which voters cast ballots for a slate of electors of the U.S. Electoral College, who in turn directly elect the President and Vice President. They occur quadrennially on Election Day, the Tuesday between November 2nd and 8th. The most recent election occurred nor do they elect voting members of the U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Goods manufactured in insular areas of the United States can be labeled "Made in USA."

The U.S. State Department The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries. The Department was created in 1789 and was the first executive department established uses the term insular area to refer not only to these territories under the sovereignty of the United States, but also those independent nations that have signed a Compact of Free Association The Compact of Free Association defines the relationship that three sovereign states—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau—have entered into as associated states with the United States with the United States. While these nations participate in many otherwise domestic programs, they are legally distinct from the United States and their inhabitants are not United States citizens or nationals.

List and status of insular areas

Several islands in the Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east and the Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean situated in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded to the southwest by the Central American countries of Panama, to the west by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico, to the north by The Greater Antilles , and to the east by the Lesser Antilles are considered insular areas of the United States.

Incorporated (integral part of United States)

Inhabited

• none

Uninhabited

• Palmyra Atoll Palmyra Atoll is an incorporated atoll administered by the United States federal government. The atoll is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), and it is located in the Northern Pacific Ocean. Geographically, Palmyra is one of the Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati Line Islands), located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, (uninhabited, mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy is a US charitable environmental organization that works to preserve the plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. The organization also promotes commercial development of its holdings; some of these developments have but administered by the Office of Insular Affairs The Office of Insular Affairs is a unit of the United States Department of the Interior that oversees federal administration of several United States possessions. It is the successor to the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department, which administered certain territories from 1902 to 1939, and the Office of Territorial Affairs (formerly the; part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands, a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code, consists of nine United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea: Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Palmyra)

Unincorporated (United States' possessions)

Inhabited

• American Samoa American Samoa /əˈmɛrɪkən səˈmoʊə/ (Samoan: Amerika Sāmoa or Sāmoa Amelika) is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the sovereign state of Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa). The main (largest and most populous) island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa Islands, Rose Atoll, and (officially unorganized, although self-governing under authority of the U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, and to insular areas of the United States)
• Guam The GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development is a regional organization of four post-Soviet states: Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (organized under Organic Act of 1950)
• Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands has a population of 80,362 . The official 2000 census count was 69,221. More than 90% of the Commonwealth's population lives on the island of Saipan. Of the fourteen other islands, only two, Tinian and Rota, have a significant population. The islands of Agrihan and Alamagan have fewer than ten residents, and the (commonwealth, organized under 1977 Covenant)
• Puerto Rico Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: "Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico" — literally Associated Free State of Puerto Rico), is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands (territory with commonwealth status, organized under terms of Puerto Rico-Federal Relations Act)
• United States Virgin Islands The United States Virgin Islands, also called Virgin Islands of the United States is a group of islands in the Caribbean that are an insular area of the United States. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles (organized under Revised Organic Act of 1954)

Uninhabited

Along with Palmyra Atoll, these form the United States Minor Outlying Islands The United States Minor Outlying Islands, a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code, consists of nine United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea: Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Palmyra:

• Baker Island Baker Island is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean about 3,100 kilometers (1,700 nmi) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia, and is a possession of the United States. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island, 68 kilometers (37 nmi) to the north
• Howland Island Howland Island is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1,700 nautical miles (3,100 km) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Geographically, it is part of the Phoenix
• Jarvis Island Jarvis Island is an uninhabited 4.5 square kilometer (1.75 sq. mile) coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean at 0°22′S 160°01′W / 0.367°S 160.017°W
• Johnston Atoll Johnston Atoll is a 50-square-mile atoll in the North Pacific Ocean about 1,400 km (750 nmi) west of Hawaii. There are four islands located on the coral reef platform, two natural islands, Johnston Island and Sand Island, which have been expanded by coral dredging, as well as North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina), an additional two
• Kingman Reef Kingman Reef is a largely submerged, uninhabited triangular shaped reef, 9.5 nautical miles (18 km) east-west and 5 nautical miles (9 km) north-south, located in the North Pacific Ocean, roughly half way between the Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa at 6°23′N 162°25′W / 6.383°N 162.417°W. It is the northernmost of the Northern Line
• Midway Atoll Midway Atoll is a 2.4 mi² (6.2 km²) atoll located in the North Pacific Ocean (near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago), about one-third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo. Midway Atoll is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. It is less than 140 nmi (259 km; 161 mi) east of the International Date Line, (administered as a National Wildlife Refuge National Wildlife Refuge is a designation for certain protected areas of the United States managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the world's premiere system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America's fish, wildlife and plants. Since President Theodore Roosevelt designated)
• Navassa Island Navassa Island is a small, uninhabited island in the Caribbean Sea, and is an unorganized unincorporated territory of the United States, which administers it through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The island is also claimed by Haiti, which claims to have had sovereignty over Navassa since 1801 (disputed with Haiti)
• Wake Island Wake Island is a coral atoll having a coastline of 12 miles (19 kilometers) in the North Pacific Ocean, located about two-thirds of the way from Honolulu (2,300 statute miles or 3,700 km west) to Guam (1,510 miles or 2,430 km east). It is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States, administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, (disputed with Marshall Islands)
• Serranilla Bank Serranilla Bank is a partially submerged reef, with small uninhabited islets, in the western Caribbean Sea. It is situated about 350 kilometres (217 miles) northeast of Punta Gorda, Nicaragua, and roughly 280 kilometres (170 miles) southeast of Jamaica. The closest neighbouring land feature is Bajo Nuevo Bank, located 110 km to the east (disputed with Colombia)
• Bajo Nuevo Bank Bajo Nuevo Bank, also known as the Petrel Islands , is a small, uninhabited reef with some small islets, covered with grass, located in the western Caribbean Sea at 15°53′N 78°38′W / 15.883°N 78.633°W (disputed with Colombia)

From July 18, 1947 until October 1, 1994, the U.S. administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia (western Pacific) administered by the United States from July 18, 1947, comprising the former South Pacific Mandate, a League of Nations Mandate administered by Japan and taken by the U.S. in 1944. On October 21, 1986, the U.S. ended its administration of, but later entered into a new political relationship with all four political units (one of which is the Northern Mariana Islands listed above, the others being the three freely associated states An associated state is the minor partner in a formal, free relationship between a political territory with a degree of statehood and a nation, for which no other specific term, such as protectorate, is adopted. The details of such "free association" are contained in a Compact of Free Association or Associated Statehood Act and are noted below).

Freely associated states

The freely associated states are the three sovereign states with which the United States has entered into a Compact of Free Association The Compact of Free Association defines the relationship that three sovereign states—the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the Republic of Palau—have entered into as associated states with the United States. They have not been within U.S. jurisdiction since they became sovereign; however, many considered them to be dependent territories A dependent territory, dependent area or dependency is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a State of the United States, until each was admitted to the United Nations The United Nations Organization or simply United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of in the 1990s.

• Republic of the Marshall Islands The Republic of the Marshall Islands /ˈmɑrʃəl ˈaɪləndz/ (help·info), is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. This nation of roughly 62,000 people is located north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the Federated States of
• Federated States of Micronesia The Federated States of Micronesia /ˌmaɪkroʊˈniːʒə/ is an independent, sovereign island nation, made up of four states from west to east: Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei and Kosrae. It comprises approximately 607 small islands in the Western Pacific spread over almost 1,700 miles (2,700 km) longitudinally just north of the equator some 2,500 miles (4,00
• Republic of Palau Palau /pəˈlaʊ/ , officially the Republic of Palau (Palauan: Beluu er a Belau), is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, some 500 miles (800 km) east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles (3,200 km) south of Tokyo. Having emerged from United Nations trusteeship (administered by the United States) in 1994, it is one of the world's youngest and

Former territories

• Philippines The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas), is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and, granted to U.S. through the Treaty of Paris The composition of the American commission was somewhat unusual in that three of its members were Senators . The American delegation members were: in 1898, achieved independence on July 4, 1946.
• Cuba The Republic of Cuba (pronounced /ˈkjuːbə/ ; Spanish: República de Cuba, pronounced [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈkuβa] ( listen)) is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second, granted to U.S. through the Treaty of Paris The composition of the American commission was somewhat unusual in that three of its members were Senators . The American delegation members were: in 1898, achieved independence on May 20, 1902.

See also

• Dependent territory
• Commonwealth (United States insular area)
• Territories of the United States
• Unorganized territory
• Guano Islands Act
• Guantanamo Bay
• Insular Cases
• Political divisions of the United States
• Territorial acquisitions of the United States

Notes and references

1. ^ "Definitions of Insular Area Political Organizations". Office of Insular Affairs. U.S. Department of the Interior. 2007-01-11. http://www.doi.gov/oia/Islandpages/political_types.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-09.

External links

• Office of Insular Affairs
• Department of the Interior Definitions of Insular Area Political Types
• Rubin, Richard, "The Lost Islands", The Atlantic Monthly, February 2001
• Chapter 7: Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas, U.S. Census Bureau, Geographic Areas Reference Manual

Coordinates: 18°15′N 66°30′W / 18.25°N 66.5°W

Categories: Subdivisions of the United States | Insular areas of the United States | Administrative divisions

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