Midway Atoll

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Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; Hawaiian: Kuaihelani, lit. 'the backbone of heaven'; Pihemanu, 'the loud din of birds') is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States, and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory of the U.S. Midway Atoll consists of three islands. The largest island is Sand Island, which is inhabited and has an airstrip. Immediately east of Sand Island, across the narrow Brooks Channel, is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is a third island, Spit Island, a narrow reef. Roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, the islands of the Midway Atoll are the only three islands in the Hawaiian Islands not part of the state of Hawaii. Unlike the other Hawaiian islands, Midway observes Samoa Time (UTC−11:00, i.e., eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time), which...

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