Howland lies about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, and is only about fifty miles north of the equator. Like many small Pacific islands, it was claimed by the United States and mined for its guano deposits. There was also an attempt at colonization, but it was interrupted by World War II, when Howland was attacked by Japanese bombers the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, killing two of the colonists and requiring the other two to be evacuated. No further attempt at colonization was made after the war. Howland is now a nature preserve and is probably best known for being the stop on Amelia Earhart’s around-the-world flight at which she never arrived.
Pitcairn Island
Pitcairn is the only inhabited island of the four in the Pitcairn Islands group. It is the last remaining British overseas territory in the Pacific. Pitcairn Island, with only fifty or so inhabitants, is the least populous and most remote jurisdiction in the world (being some 1300 miles, or 2100 kilometers, west of Chile). All of its inhabitants are descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty and the Polynesians who accompanied them. The burned wreckage of the Bounty is still visible under the waters of Bounty Bay. Pitcairn makes what is supposedly some of the best honey in the world, so much so that even the Queen has praised its virtues. If you decide to buy some through their web site, though, be prepared for a long wait. Pitcairn has no airport, and Bounty Bay is small and shallow, so the island is visited and supplied only occasionally. Mail deliveries can be months apart. (I ordered some honey myself about two or three months ago and am told that it will still be about another month before it even gets off the island.) Pitcairn is unique in quite a few other ways as well, so much so that I had a hard time deciding which ones to include and which to leave out!
Bouvet is a 19 square mile (49 square kilometer) volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1550 miles (2500 kilometers) south-southwest of South Africa. It is almost completely covered with ice. Most of the coastline consists of very steep cliffs, making landings difficult. Bouvet was originally a British territory, but Britain waived its claim and ceded the island to Norway, which maintains it today as a nature preserve. Bouvet has never been inhabited and almost certainly never will be, but it still has its own top-level Internet domain name, .bv, which is unused. Bouvet’s claim to fame is that it is the most remote island in the world. The nearest land, Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, lies some 1,100 miles (1,750 kilometers) to the south. Adventure travelers and amateur radio operators (using the island-specific prefix 3Y) therefore like to travel there.
North Sentinel Island lies some 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Smith Island, in the Bay of Bengal. It is about 28 square miles (72 square kilometers) and is completely forested, with the exception of the thin strips of beach that encircle most of it. It is otherwise unremarkable, except that it is populated by one of the few remaining “uncontacted peoples” in the world. The Sentinelese are highly xenophobic and resist virtually all attempts at contact, frequently firing arrows at boats and helicopters that come too close to the island (sometimes killing the “intruders). Between their active isolationism and the difficulty of observing the island from the air, almost nothing is known of the Sentinelese — their language, culture, and even an accurate estimation of their numbers are all unknown. North Sentinel Island is technically part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory, but in practice, the local government has said that they intend to leave the island to its inhabitants, making it de facto autonomous.
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