Line Islands

The Line Islands, also called Equatorial Sporades (from English: Line Islands), are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean twelve islands located north of the Society Islands, south of the Hawaiian Islands, and east of the Phoenix Islands. They extend 2,410 km in a NW-SE direction, with a total area of 680 km². Most belong to the Republic of Kiribati, except for three that are possessions of the United States (Palmyra Atoll, Kingman Reef and Jarvis Island).

The archipelago is located on both sides of the equator, hence its name. It has also been called Equatorial Sporades or Central Polynesian Sporades, to differentiate them from the Sporades islands of Greece, which in Greek means “scattered”.

Archaeological remains indicate that some islands were inhabited by Polynesians, but when the Europeans arrived they were already uninhabited. They were discovered by Pedro Fernández de Quirós, who formed Spanish Polynesia with its capital in Puerto Nuevo, on Christmas Island (Christmas Island, today Kiritimati), and colonized them with Creoles from New Spain. After the assassination of Father Cantova in 1733 in the Caroline Islands and due to French-English pressure, the islands passed into the hands of France, which in 1888 sold them to the United Kingdom for 30 million pounds of silver. They were incorporated into the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1916.

Today there are a total of 9,100 inhabitants, the majority on Kiritimati Island, originally from the Gilbert Islands. The main activity is the export of copra.

The islands of the Line are in the time zone of the first hour of the planet: UTC +14. Therefore, it is the first place in the world to greet each new day and each new year. It has the same time as Hawaii, but a day later, and is even 26 hours ahead of other islands in Oceania.

^* Lagoon areas marked with an asterisk fall within the island areas of the previous column, because they are different from a typical atoll, inland waters were completely sealed from the sea.

Only three islands are inhabited, with a total population of 8,809 (according to the 2005 census), of which 5,115 are on Kiritimati, 2,539 on Tabuaeran, and 1,155 on Teraina. In the year 1900, the total population of these three atolls was approximately 300.

Islands

From north to south they are as follows:

• Teraina, or Washington Island.
• Tabuaeran, or Fanning Island.
• Kiritimati, or Christmas Island.
• Malden Island, historically known as Independence Island.
• Starbuck Island, historically also known as Volunteer, Low, Starve, Hero, Barren and Coral Queen.
• Vostok Island, or Staver Island.
• Caroline Island, or Millenium Island/Millennium/Milenium Island.
• Flint Island.

US possessions

In addition to the islands of the Republic of Kiribati, geographically the archipelago includes the US possessions of:

• Jarvis Island
• Atolon Palmyra
• Arrecife Kingman