The United States Minor Outlying Islands is a catch-all legal category for nine remote US territories that are not part of any state or the District of Columbia. They range from tiny atolls in the Pacific to uninhabited coral reefs in the Caribbean. Together they cover less than 2,000 square kilometers of land, and most of that land hosts no permanent civilian population.

They span an enormous range of longitudes.

The nine territories

Baker Island and Howland Island sit almost exactly on the equator and the International Date Line, at roughly 176 degrees West. They are uninhabited, maintained as wildlife refuges, and technically at UTC-12, though the IANA database does not maintain separate entries for them. They are among the last places on Earth to experience midnight on any given day.

Jarvis Island is a coral island in the central Pacific, uninhabited, used occasionally for scientific research.

Johnston Atoll hosted a US military facility and was used for nuclear weapons testing. It is now closed and largely decontaminated. It ran on US military schedules when active.

Kingman Reef is a submerged atoll, essentially a reef with no dry land above high tide. It is claimed by the US but has no official timezone.

Midway Atoll (IANA: Pacific/Midway, UTC-11) is one of the two inhabited territories in this group. It hosts the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and a small staff. No civilian residents, no DST.

Navassa Island is a small island in the Caribbean between Jamaica and Haiti, claimed by both the US and Haiti, uninhabited, maintained as a wildlife refuge.

Palmyra Atoll is in the central Pacific, uninhabited, administered jointly as a wildlife refuge and periodically visited by researchers.

Wake Island (IANA: Pacific/Wake, UTC+12) hosts a US military base and some civilian contractors. It observes UTC+12, which places it in the same calendar day as the western Pacific and Australia.

Battle of Midway and the clock of war

Midway Atoll is best known as the site of the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942), one of the decisive naval engagements of the Pacific War. US Navy codebreakers at Pearl Harbor, working under Commander Joseph Rochefort, cracked enough Japanese naval code to determine the target of a planned Japanese offensive was “AF,” which the Americans determined was Midway.

The intelligence allowed Admiral Chester Nimitz to position his carriers in ambush. The battle sank four Japanese carriers in a single day, June 4, 1942. The Pacific War’s momentum shifted.

Timing was everything. The Japanese strike on Midway launched at 0430 local time. American dive bombers attacked the Japanese fleet when it was most vulnerable, during the critical window when Japanese planes were being refueled and rearmed on deck. Six minutes of action at roughly 1022 local time on June 4 sank three carriers and changed the war.

The timezone of no one

Baker Island and Howland Island at UTC-12 are a notable case: they are among the last places on Earth where the calendar changes over, and they are empty. Two uninhabited specks of coral sit at what is effectively the world’s most delayed midnight, receiving the day last, and no human being watches it arrive.

The IANA database notes that UTC-12 is used for these territories technically, though since there is no population, the practical significance is nil. It does mean that if a researcher were stationed there, they would be the last person on Earth to experience New Year’s Eve.

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