- published: 05 Dec 2009
- views: 5286
- author: MEMmaker3
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- Alabama
- Alaska
- All Red Line
- American Samoa
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Asia
- Atoll
- Australia
- Bajo Nuevo Bank
- Baker Island
- Battle of Midway
- Bonin Islands
- British Empire
- Bruce B. Henderson
- California
- Chile
- Christmas Island
- Clipperton Island
- Coconut
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Conservation biology
- Cook Islands
- Coral reef
- Coral Sea Islands
- Delaware
- Dependent territory
- East Timor
- Easter Island
- Edmund Fanning
- El Niño
- Employment
- Federal district
- Fiji
- Florida
- France
- French Polynesia
- Fresh water
- Georgia (U.S. state)
- Gerrit P. Judd
- Global warming
- Guam
- Guano
- Guano Islands Act
- Hart Bochner
- Hawaii
- Hawaiian Islands
- Henry Ernest Cooper
- HMS Cormorant (1877)
- Howland Island
- ICAO
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Indonesia
- Insular area
- Invasive species
- Iowa
- James Brolin
- Japan
- Jarvis Island
- Johnston Atoll
- Joseph F. Rock
- Kamehameha IV
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Kingdom of Hawaii
- Kingman Reef
- Kiribati
- Leslie Vincent
- Line Islands
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Marshall Islands
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Midway Atoll
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- National Memorial
- National Monument
- Nature Conservancy
- Nauru
- Nautical mile
- Naval Air Station
- Navassa Island
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Caledonia
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- New Zealand
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Nuclear weapon
- Oceania
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Ordnance
- Oregon
- Pacific Ocean
- Palau
- Palmyra Atoll
- Panama Canal
- Papua New Guinea
- Pennsylvania
- Pisonia
- Pitcairn Islands
- Puerto Rico
- Rachel Ward
- Reef
- Rhode Island
- Samoa
- Scaevola
- Scuba diving
- Serranilla Bank
- Solomon Islands
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Sovereign state
- Sovereignty
- Submarine cable
- Tabuaeran
- Takings Clause
- Tennessee
- Territory of Hawaii
- Texas
- The FBI Files
- Tokelau
- Tonga
- True crime
- Tuvalu
- U.S. Congress
- U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Government
- U.S. Navy
- U.S. state
- U.S. Supreme Court
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Utah
- Vanuatu
- Vermont
- Vincent Bugliosi
- Virginia
- Wake Island
- Wallis and Futuna
- Warship
- Washington (state)
- Washington, D.C.
- West Virginia
- William Ansel Kinney
- Wisconsin
- World War II
- WW II
- Wyoming
-
Alabama
Alabama (
i/ˌæləˈbæmə/) is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th-most extensive and the 23rd-most populous of the 50 United States. Alabama ranks second in the area of its inland waterways.
From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern states, suffered economic hardship, in part because of continued dependence on agriculture. Despite the growth of major industries and urban centers, white rural interests dominated the state legislature until the 1960s, while urban interests and African Americans were under-represented. Following World War II, Alabama experienced growth as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and technology. In addition, the establishment or expansion of multiple military installations, primarily those of the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, added to state jobs.
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Alaska
Alaska (i/əˈlæskə/) is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait. Alaska is the 4th least populous and the least densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately half of Alaska's 722,718 residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area.
Alaska was purchased from Russia on March 30, 1867, for $7.2 million ($120 million in today's[when?] dollars) at approximately two cents per acre ($4.74/km²). The land went through several administrative changes before becoming an organized (or incorporated) territory on May 11, 1912, and the 49th state of the U.S. on January 3, 1959.
The name "Alaska" (Аляска) was already introduced in the Russian colonial period, when it was used only for the peninsula and is derived from the Aleut alaxsxaq, meaning "the mainland" or, more literally, "the object towards which the action of the sea is directed". It is also known as Alyeska, the "great land", an Aleut word derived from the same root.
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American Samoa
American Samoa (/əˈmɛrɨkən səˈmoʊ.ə/ (
listen); Samoan: Amerika Sāmoa, IPA: [aˈmɛɾika ˌsaːˈmoa]; also Amelika Sāmoa or Sāmoa Amelika) is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the Independent State of Samoa (formerly known as Western Samoa). The main (largest and most populous) island is Tutuila, with the Manuʻa Islands, Rose Atoll, and Swains Island also included in the territory.
American Samoa is part of the Samoan Islands chain, located west of the Cook Islands, north of Tonga, and some 300 miles (500 km) south of Tokelau. To the west are the islands of the Wallis and Futuna group.
The 2010 census showed a total population of 55,519 people. The total land area is 76.1 square miles (197.1 km2), slightly more than Washington, D.C. American Samoa is the southernmost territory of the United States.
Contact with Europeans began in the early 18th century. Jacob Roggeveen (1659–1729), a Dutchman, was the first known European to sight the Samoan islands in 1722. This visit was followed by the French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811), who named them the Navigator Islands in 1768. Contact was limited before the 1830s which is when English missionaries and traders began arriving.
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Arizona
Arizona (i/ɛrɪˈzoʊnə/; /ærɪˈzoʊnə/) (Navajo: Hoozdo Hahoodzo; O'odham: Alĭ ṣonak) is a state of the United States, located in the southwestern region of the country. Arizona is also part of the Western United States and of the Mountain West states. Arizona is the sixth most extensive and the 16th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in population by eight cities of the Phoenix metropolitan area: Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, and Surprise.
Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, and it achieved statehood on February 14, 1912. Arizona is noted for its desert climate in its southern half, where there are very hot summers and quite mild winters. The northern half of Arizona also features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees, a very large, high plateau (the Colorado Plateau) and some mountain ranges—such as the San Francisco Mountains—as well as large, deep canyons, where there is much more moderate weather for three seasons of the year, plus significant snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff and Alpine.
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Arkansas
Arkansas (i/ˈɑrkənsɔː/ AR-kən-saw) is a state located in the Southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states (N: Missouri; E: Tennessee, Mississippi; S: Louisiana; SW: Texas; W: Oklahoma), and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River. Its diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozarks and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River. Arkansas is the 29th most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, located in the central portion of the state.
The name “Arkansas” derives from the same root as the name for the state of Kansas. The Kansa tribe of Native Americans are closely associated with the Sioux tribes of the Great Plains. The word “Arkansas” itself is a French pronunciation (“Arcansas”) of a Quapaw (a related “Kaw” tribe) word, akakaze, meaning “land of downriver people” or the Sioux word akakaze meaning “people of the south wind”. The pronunciation of Arkansas was made official by an act of the state legislature in 1881, after a dispute between two U.S. Senators from Arkansas. One wanted to pronounce the name /ɑrˈkænzəs/ ar-KAN-zəs and the other wanted /ˈɑrkənsɔː/ AR-kən-saw.
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Australia
Australia (
/əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Bonin Islands
The Bonin Islands, known in Japan as the Ogasawara Group (小笠原群島, Ogasawara Guntō?) are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some 1,000 kilometres (540 nmi; 620 mi) directly south of Tokyo, Japan. Administratively, they are part of Ogasawara Municipality (mura) of Ogasawara Subprefecture, Tokyo. The total area of the islands is 73 square kilometres (28 sq mi), with a population of 2,440 (2000 on Chichi-jima, and 440 on Haha-jima).
The Ogasawara Islands were added to UNESCO's list of World Natural Heritage sites in July 2011 as animals and plants there have undergone unique evolutionary processes since these islands have never been connected with a continent, thus often dubbed as the "Galapagos of the Orient".
The only inhabited islands of the group are Chichi-jima (父島), the seat of the municipal government, and Haha-jima (母島) includes what is within Ogasawara Village.
In Japanese, the archipelago is called Ogasawara Group (小笠原群島, Ogasawara Guntō?). By contrast, the term Ogasawara Archipelago (小笠原諸島, Ogasawara shotō?), is a wider, collective term for all islands of Ogasawara Municipality, which also includes the Volcano Islands and a few isolated islands. The common English name for Ogasawara Guntō is Bonin Islands, from bunin, an archaic reading of 無人 (mujin), that means "no people" or "uninhabited." Rich of unique forms of life, the archipelago was nominated as a natural World Heritage Site on June 24, 2011.
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British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 33,700,000 km2 (13,012,000 sq mi), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.
During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England (and then, following union between England and Scotland in 1707, Great Britain) the dominant colonial power in North America and India. The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after a war of independence deprived Britain of some of its oldest and most populous colonies.
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California
California (pronouncedi/kælɨˈfɔrnjə/) is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third most extensive (after Alaska and Texas). It is home to the nation's second- and sixth-largest census statistical areas (Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and San Francisco Bay Area), and eight of the nation's fifty most populated cities (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, Long Beach and Oakland). The capital city is Sacramento.
California's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west, to the Sierra Nevada mountains in the east – from the Redwood–Douglas-fir forests of the northwest, to the Mojave Desert areas in the southeast. The center of the state is dominated by Central Valley, a major agricultural area. California contains both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States (Mount Whitney and Death Valley), and has the third-longest coastline of all states (after Alaska and Florida). Earthquakes are a common occurrence due to the state's location along the Pacific Ring of Fire: about 37,000 are recorded annually.
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Chile
Chile (i/ˈtʃɪliː/ or /ˈtʃɪleɪ/), officially the Republic of Chile (Spanish: República de Chile [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈtʃile] ( listen)), is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. Along with Ecuador, it is one of two countries in South America that do not border Brazil. Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas and Easter Island. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica, although all claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty.
Chile's distinctive shape—4,300 kilometres (2,700 mi) long and on average 175 kilometres (109 mi) wide—makes it the longest country in the world, north to south, with the fifth lengthiest coastline at over 78 thousand kilometers. The diverse climate of Chile ranges from the world's driest desert in the north—the Atacama—through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, humid subtropical in Easter Island, to an Oceanic climate, including alpine tundra and glaciers in the east and south. The northern desert contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. The relatively small central area dominates in terms of population and agricultural resources, and is the cultural and political center from which Chile expanded in the late 19th century when it incorporated its northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands.
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Christmas Island
Coordinates: 10°29′S 105°38′E / 10.483°S 105.633°E / -10.483; 105.633 The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, 360 km (220 mi) south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, 975 km (606 mi) ENE of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and 2,748 km (1,708 mi) west of the Territorian city of Darwin.
Christmas Island has a population of 1,403 residents who live in a number of "settlement areas" on the northern tip of the island: Flying Fish Cove (also known as Kampong), Silver City, Poon Saan, and Drumsite.
The island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna, which is of significant interest to scientists and naturalists. 63% of its 135 square kilometres (52 sq mi) is an Australian national park. There exist large areas of primary monsoonal forest.
Phosphate, deposited originally as dead marine organisms (not guano as often thought), has been mined on the island for many years.
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Colorado
Colorado (i/kɒləˈrædoʊ/ or /kɒləˈrɒdoʊ/) is the US state that encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, and the Mountain States. Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 22nd most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,116,796 on July 1, 2011, an increase of +1.74% since the 2010 United States Census.
The state was named for the Colorado River, which early Spanish explorers named the Río Colorado for the red colored (Spanish: colorado) silt the river carried from the mountains. On August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as the 38th state. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because it was admitted to the Union in 1876, the centennial year of the United States Declaration of Independence.
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Connecticut
Connecticut (i/kəˈnɛtɨkət/) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south (with which it shares a water boundary in Long Island Sound).
Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately bisects the state. Its capital city is Hartford. Much of southern and western Connecticut (along with the majority of the state's population) is part of the New York metropolitan area; three of Connecticut's eight counties are statistically included in the New York City combined statistical area, the same area is widely referred to as the Tri-State area. Connecticut's center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County, which is also located within the Tri-State area.
Connecticut is the 3rd least extensive, the 29th most populous, and 4th most densely populated of the 50 United States. Called the Constitution State, Nutmeg State, and "The Land of Steady Habits", Connecticut was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States.
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Cook Islands
The Cook Islands (i/ˈkʊk ˈaɪləndz/; Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani) is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand. The 15 small islands have a total land area of 240 square kilometres (92.7 sq mi), but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,800,000 square kilometres (690,000 sq mi) of ocean.
The main population centres are on the island of Rarotonga (14,153 in 2006), where there is an international airport. There is a much larger population of Cook Islanders in New Zealand, particularly the North Island. In the 2006 census, 58,008 self-identified as being of ethnic Cook Island Māori descent.
With about 100,000 visitors travelling to the islands in the 2010-11 financial year,tourism is the country's main industry, and the leading element of the economy, far ahead of offshore banking, pearls, and marine and fruit exports.
Defence and foreign affairs are the responsibility of New Zealand, in consultation with the Cook Islands. In recent times, the Cook Islands have adopted an increasingly independent foreign policy. Although Cook Islanders are citizens of New Zealand, they have the status of Cook Islands nationals, which is not given to other New Zealand citizens.
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Coral Sea Islands
The Coral Sea Islands Territory includes a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. The only inhabited island is Willis Island. The territory covers 780,000 km2, extending east and south from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, and including Heralds Beacon Island, Osprey Reef, the Willis Group, and fifteen other reef/island groups.
The Coral Sea Islands were first charted in 1803; in the 1870 and 1880s the islands were mined for guano but the absence of a permanent supply of fresh water prevented long-term habitation. The territory was created in 1969 by the Coral Sea Islands Act (before, the area was considered part of Queensland) and extended in 1997 to include Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs nearly 800 km further South, already in the Tasman Sea.
The two latter reefs are much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales (about 150 km) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.
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Delaware
Delaware (i/ˈdɛləwɛər/ DEL-ə-wair) is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, to the northeast by New Jersey, and to the north by Pennsylvania. The state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor, after whom what is now called Cape Henlopen was originally named.
Delaware is located in the northeastern portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second least extensive, the sixth least populous, but the sixth most densely populated of the 50 United States. Delaware is divided into three counties. From north to south, these three counties are New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. While the southern two counties have historically been predominantly agricultural, New Castle County has been more industrialized.
The history of the state's economic and industrial development is closely tied to the impact of the Du Pont family, founders and scions of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, one of the world’s largest chemical companies.
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East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (tiˈmɔr ˈlɛʃteɪ), commonly known as East Timori/ˌiːst ˈtiːmɔr/ (Tetum: Timór Lorosa'e, Portuguese: Timor-Leste), is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor. The small country of 15,410 km² (5,400 sq mi) is located about 640 km (400 mi) northwest of Darwin, Australia.
East Timor was colonized by Portugal in the 16th century, and was known as Portuguese Timor until Portugal's decolonization of the country. In late 1975, East Timor declared its independence, but later that year was invaded and occupied by Indonesia and was declared Indonesia's 27th province the following year. In 1999, following the United Nations-sponsored act of self-determination, Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002. East Timor is one of only two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Asia, the other being the Philippines.
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Easter Island
Coordinates: 27°7′S 109°22′W / 27.117°S 109.367°W / -27.117; -109.367
Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a warning of the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists also blame diseases carried by European colonizers and slave raiding of the 1860s for devastating the local peoples.
Easter Island is claimed to be the most remote inhabited island in the world.
The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island. Roggeveen named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island".
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Fiji
Fijii/ˈfiːdʒiː/ (Fijian: Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी), officially the Republic of Fiji (Fijian: Matanitu ko Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी गणराज्यFijī Gaṇarājya), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas, France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north.
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity started around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC. The country comprises an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of circa 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 850,000. The former contains Suva, the capital and largest city. Most of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres. Viti Levu's interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain.
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Florida
Florida (i/ˈflɒrɪdə/) is a state in the southeastern United States, bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida is the 22nd most extensive, the 4th most populous, and the 8th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state capital is Tallahassee, its largest city is Jacksonville, and the South Florida metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the southeastern U.S.
Much of Florida is situated on a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Straits of Florida. Its geography is marked by a coastline, by the omnipresence of water and the threat of hurricanes. Florida has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, encompassing approximately 1,350 miles (2,170 km), and is the only state to border both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Much of the state is at or near sea level and its terrain is characterized by sedimentary soils. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south. Its symbolic animals like the American alligator, Florida panther and the manatee, can be found in the Everglades, one of the most famous national parks in the world.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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French Polynesia
French Polynesia (i/ˈfrɛntʃ pɒlɨˈniːʒə/; French: Polynésie française, pronounced: [pɔlinezi fʁɑ̃sɛz]; Tahitian: Pōrīnetia Farāni) is an overseas country of the French Republic (pays d'outre-mer). It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory (Papeetē). Although not an integral part of its territory, Clipperton Island was administered from French Polynesia until 2007.
The island groups that make up French Polynesia were not officially united until the establishment of the French protectorate in 1889. The first of these islands to be settled by indigenous Polynesians were the Marquesas Islands in AD 300 and the Society Islands in AD 800. The Polynesians were organized in loose chieftainships.
European communication began in 1521 when the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sighted Pukapuka in the Tuāmotu-Gambier Archipelago. Dutchman Jakob Roggeveen came across Bora Bora in the Society Islands in 1722, and the British explorer Samuel Wallis visited Tahiti in 1767. The French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville visited Tahiti in 1768, while the British explorer James Cook visited in 1769. Christian missions began with Spanish priests who stayed in Tahiti for a year from 1774; Protestants from the London Missionary Society settled permanently in Polynesia in 1797.
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Guam
Guam (i/ˈɡwɑːm/; Chamorro: Guåhån) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of sixteen Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations. The island's capital is Hagåtña (formerly Agaña). Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands.
The Chamorros, Guam's indigenous people, first populated the island approximately 4,000 years ago. The island has a long history of European colonialism. Discovered by Ferdinand Magellan during a Spanish expedition on March 6, 1521, the first colony was established in 1668 by Spain with the arrival of settlers including Padre San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. For more than two centuries Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons that crossed the Pacific annually. The island was controlled by Spain until 1898, when it was surrendered to the United States during the Spanish-American War and later formally ceded as part of the Treaty of Paris.
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Hawaii
Coordinates: 21°18′41″N 157°47′47″W / 21.31139°N 157.79639°W / 21.31139; -157.79639
Hawaii (i/həˈwaɪ.iː/ or /həˈwaɪʔiː/; Hawaiian: Hawaiʻi Hawaiian pronunciation: [hɐˈvɐiʔi]) is the most recent of the 50 U.S. states (August 21, 1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.
Hawaii’s diverse natural scenery, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches and oceanic surrounding, and active volcanoes make it a popular destination for tourists, surfers, biologists, and volcanologists alike. Due to its mid-Pacific location, Hawaii has many North American and Asian influences along with its own vibrant native culture. Hawaii has over a million permanent residents along with many visitors and U.S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu.
The state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian Island chain, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles (2,400 km). At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight "main islands" are (from the northwest to southeast) Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the island of Hawaiʻi. The last is by far the largest and is often called "The Big Island" to avoid confusion with the state as a whole. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania.
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Idaho
Idaho (i/ˈaɪdəhoʊ/) is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. Idaho is the 14th most expansive, the 39th most populous, and the 7th least densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state.
Idaho is a mountainous state with an area larger than that of all of New England. It is landlocked, surrounded by the states of Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Montana and the Canadian province of British Columbia. However, the network of dams and locks on the Columbia River and Snake River make the city of Lewiston the farthest inland seaport on the Pacific coast of the contiguous United States.
Idaho's nickname is the Gem State, because nearly every known type of gemstone has been found there. In addition, Idaho is one of only two places in the world where star garnets can be found (the other is the Himalaya Mountains, in India)[citation needed], and is the only place six-pointed star garnets have been found[citation needed]. Additionally Idaho is sometimes called the Potato State owing to its popular crop. The state motto is Esto Perpetua (Latin for "Let it be forever").
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Illinois
Illinois (i/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.
Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.
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Indiana
Indiana (i/ɪndiˈænə/) is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 15th most populous of the 50 United States. Indiana is the least extensive state in the continental US west of the Appalachian Mountains. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis, the second largest of any state capital and largest state capital east of the Mississippi River.
Before it became a territory, varying cultures of indigenous peoples and historic Native Americans inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Angel Mounds State Historic Site, one of the best preserved ancient earthwork mound sites in the United States, can be found in Southwestern Indiana near Evansville. Residents of Indiana are known as Hoosiers. The etymology of the word is disputed, but the leading theory as advanced by the Indiana Historical Bureau and the Indiana Historical Society has "Hoosier" originating from the upland South region of the U.S. as a derogatory slang term for a rough countryman, a country bumpkin.
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Indonesia
Indonesia (i/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian pronunciation: [rɛpʊblɪk ɪndɔnɛsɪa]), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 17,508 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 17th largest economy by nominal GDP.
The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.
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Insular area
An insular area is a United States territory, that is neither a part of one of the 50 U.S. states nor the District of Columbia, the federal district of the U.S. They are called "insular" from the Latin word insula ("island") because they were once administered by the War Department's Bureau of Insular Affairs, now the Office of Insular Affairs at the Department of the Interior. The term insular possession is also sometimes used.
Because those insular areas that are inhabited are unincorporated territories, their native-born inhabitants are not constitutionally entitled to United States citizenship, under the Citizenship Clause.[citation needed] However, Congress has extended citizenship rights to all inhabited territories except American Samoa, and these citizens may vote and run for office in any U.S. jurisdiction in which they are residents. The people of American Samoa are U.S. nationals, 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.[citation needed]
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Iowa
Iowa (i/ˈaɪ.əwə/) is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New France. After the Louisiana Purchase, settlers laid the foundation for an agriculture-based economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is often known as the "Food Capital of the World".
In the latter half of the 20th century, Iowa's agricultural economy transitioned to a diversified economy of advanced manufacturing, processing, financial services, biotechnology, and green energy production. Iowa is the 26th most extensive and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Des Moines. Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states to live in.
Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east; the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west; the northern boundary is a line along 43 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. The southern border is the Des Moines River and a not-quite-straight line along approximately 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Missouri v. Iowa after a standoff between Missouri and Iowa known as the Honey War.
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Japan
Japan
i/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Kansas
Kansas (i/ˈkænzəs/) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind," although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans."
For thousands of years what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the Eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the Western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine if Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly, when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, sorghum and sunflowers. Kansas is the 15th most extensive and the 33rd most populous of the 50 United States.
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Kentucky
Kentucky (i/kɨnˈtʌki/), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the Upper South of the United States. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth (the others being Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts). Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.
Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River. It is also home to the highest per capita number of deer and turkey in the United States, the largest free-ranging elk herd east of Montana, and the nation's most productive coalfield. Kentucky is also known for horse racing, bourbon distilleries, bluegrass music, automobile manufacturing, tobacco and college basketball.
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Kiribati
Kiribati ([kɪribas] KIRR-i-bas or ˌkɪrəˈbɑdi;Gilbertese: [ˈkiɾibas]), officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is just over 100,000 (2011), and the island nation is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line at its easternmost point.
The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. The capital of South Tarawa consists of a number of islets connected through a series of causeways, located in the Tarawa archipelago. Kiribati became independent from the United Kingdom in 1979. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF and the World Bank, and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999.
Kiribati was named in French by captains Krusenstern and Louis Isidore Duperrey "îles Gilbert", Gilbert Islands, after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sighted the islands in 1788. The current name, Kiribati, is an adaptation of "Gilberts", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands". Although the indigenous Gilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper is Tungaru, the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of islands which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain.
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Line Islands
Coordinates: 0°0′S 157°0′W / 0°N 157°W / 0; -157
The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world. Eight of the islands form part of Kiribati, while the remaining three are United States territories grouped with the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
Those that are part of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14:00. The time of day is the same as in Hawaiʻi, but the date is one day ahead. The time is 26 hours ahead of some other islands in Oceania like Baker Island which uses UTC-12:00.
The United States previously claimed all the Line Islands under the Guano Islands Act. This claim was relinquished under the Treaty of Tarawa, which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the chain.
The group is geographically divided into three subgroups; The Northern, Central, and Southern Line Islands. The Central Line Islands are sometimes grouped with the Southern Line Islands. The table below lists the islands from North to South.
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Louisiana
Louisiana (i/luːˌiːziˈænə/ or i/ˌluːziˈænə/; French: État de Louisiane, [lwizjan] ( listen); Louisiana Creole: Léta de la Lwizyàn) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Louisiana is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties. The largest parish by population is East Baton Rouge Parish, and the largest by land area is Cameron Parish.
Much of the state was formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp. These contain a rich southern biota; typical examples include birds such as ibis and egrets. There are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a natural process in the landscape, and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas. These support an exceptionally large number of plant species including many species of orchids and carnivorus plants.
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Maine
Maine (i/ˈmeɪn/) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost portion of New England. It is known for its scenery—its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, its heavily forested interior and picturesque waterways—as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams.
For thousands of years, indigenous peoples were the only inhabitants of the territory that is now Maine. At the time of European encounter, several Algonquian-speaking peoples inhabited the area. The first European settlement in Maine was by the French in 1604 on Saint Croix Island, by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons. The first English settlement in Maine, the short-lived Popham Colony, was established by the Plymouth Company in 1607. A number of English settlements were established along the coast of Maine in the 1620s, although the rugged climate, deprivations, and conflict with the local peoples caused many to fail over the years. As Maine entered the 18th century, only a half dozen European settlements survived. Patriot and British forces contended for Maine's territory during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Maine was part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until 1820, when it voted to secede from Massachusetts. On March 15, 1820, it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise. Maine is the 39th most extensive and the 41st most populous of the 50 United States.
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Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Marshallese: Aolepān Aorōkin M̧ajeļ), is an island country located in the northern Pacific Ocean. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia, with the population of around 68,000 people spread out over 34 low-lying coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The islands share maritime boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island to the north,Kiribati to the south-east, and Nauru to the south. The most populous atoll is Majuro, which also acts as the capital.
Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts. Islands in the archipelago were first explored by Europeans in the 1520s, with Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar sighting an atoll in August 1526. Other expeditions by Spanish and English ships followed, with the islands' current name stemming from British explorer John Marshall. Recognised as part of the Spanish East Indies in 1874, the islands were sold to Germany in 1884, and became of German New Guinea in 1885. The Empire of Japan occupied the Marshall Islands in World War I, which were later joined with other former German territories in 1919 by the League of Nations to form the South Pacific Mandate. In World War II, the islands were conquered by the United States in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, the Marshall Islands were then consolidated into the United-States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Self-government was achieved in 1979, and full sovereignty in 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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Maryland
Maryland (i/ˈmɛrɨlənd/) is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution, and three nicknames for it (the Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State) are occasionally used. Maryland is the 9th smallest state by area, but the 19th most populous and the 5th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's most populated city is Baltimore. Its capital is Annapolis. It was named after Queen Henrietta Maria.
Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles (32,133.2 km2) and is comparable in overall area with the European country of Belgium (11,787 square miles (30,530 km2)). It is the 42nd largest/9th smallest state, and is closest in size to Hawaii (10,930.98 square miles (28,311.1 km2)), the next smallest state. The next largest state, Maryland's neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland (24,229.76 square miles (62,754.8 km2)).
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Massachusetts
Massachusetts (i/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsɨts/), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts is the 7th least extensive, but the 14th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state features two separate metropolitan areas – the eastern Boston metropolitan area and the western Springfield metropolitan area. Approximately two thirds of the state's population lives in Greater Boston, most of which is either urban or suburban. Western Massachusetts features one urban area – the Knowledge Corridor along the Connecticut River – and a mix of college towns and rural areas. Massachusetts is the most populous of the six New England states and has the US's sixth highest GDP per capita.
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Michigan
Michigan (i/ˈmɪʃɨɡən/) is a state located in the Great Lakes region of the Midwestern United States. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan is the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, with the 11th most extensive total area. Its capital is Lansing, and the largest city is Detroit. Michigan was admitted into the Union on January 26, 1837 as the 26th state.
Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the world, being bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, plus Lake Saint Clair. Michigan is one of the leading U.S. states for recreational boating. The state has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. A person in the state is never more than six miles (9.7 km) from a natural water source or more than 85 miles (137 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline. It is the largest state by total area east of the Mississippi River.
Michigan is the only state to consist of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula, to which the name Michigan was originally applied, is often noted to be shaped like a mitten. The Upper Peninsula (often referred to as "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The two peninsulas are connected by the Mackinac Bridge. The Upper Peninsula is economically important due to its status as a tourist destination. There is also a variety of natural resources to be found there, including a sizable amount of iron ore.
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Minnesota
Minnesota (i/mɪnɨˈsoʊtə/) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state on May 11, 1858. Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water". Those waters, together with forests, parks, and wilderness areas, offer residents and tourists a variety of outdoor recreational opportunities.
Minnesota is the 12th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the U.S. states. Nearly 60% of its residents live in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area (known as the "Twin Cities"), the center of transportation, business, industry and education and home to an internationally known arts community. The remainder of the state consists of western prairies now given over to intensive agriculture; deciduous forests in the southeast, now cleared, farmed and settled; and the less populated North Woods, used for mining, forestry, and recreation.
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Mississippi
Mississippi (i/ˌmɪsɨˈsɪpi/) is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). Mississippi is the 32nd most extensive and the 31st most populous of the 50 United States. The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, which was cleared for cotton cultivation in the 19th century. Today, its catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States. The state symbol is the magnolia grandiflora tree.
Mississippi is bordered on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and a narrow coast on the Gulf of Mexico and on the west, across the Mississippi River, by Louisiana and Arkansas.
In addition to its namesake, major rivers in Mississippi include the Big Black River, the Pearl River, the Yazoo River, the Pascagoula River, and the Tombigbee River. Major lakes include Ross Barnett Reservoir, Arkabutla Lake, Sardis Lake and Grenada Lake. The largest lake in Mississippi is Grenada Lake.
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Missouri
Missouri (i/mɨˈzʊəri/) (nickname The Show Me State) is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 21st most extensive and the 18th most populous of the 50 United States. Missouri comprises 114 counties and the independent city of St. Louis. The four largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield, and Columbia. Missouri's capital is Jefferson City. The land that is now Missouri was acquired from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase and became known as the Missouri Territory. Part of the Territory was admitted into the union as the 24th state on August 10, 1821.
Missouri generally mirrors the demographic, economic and political makeup of America and has long been considered a political bellwether state. With the exceptions of the Presidential elections of 1956 and 2008, Missouri's results have accurately predicted the next President of the United States in every election since 1904. It has both Midwestern and Southern cultural influences, reflecting its history as a border state. It is also a transition between the Eastern and Western United States, as St. Louis is often called the "western-most Eastern city" and Kansas City the "eastern-most Western city". Missouri's geography is highly varied. The northern part of the state lies in dissected till plains while the southern part lies in the Ozark Mountains (a dissected plateau), with the Missouri River dividing the two. The state lies at the intersection of the three greatest rivers of North America, with the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers near St. Louis, and the confluence of the Ohio River with the Mississippi north of the Bootheel. The starting points of the Pony Express Trail and Oregon Trail were both in Missouri. The mean center of United States population as of the 2010 Census is at the town of Plato in Texas County, Missouri.
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Montana
Montana (i/mɒnˈtænə/) is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges that are part of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name, derived from the Spanish word montaña (mountain). Montana has several nicknames, none official, including: "Big Sky Country" and "The Treasure State", and slogans that include "Land of the Shining Mountains" and more recently, "The Last Best Place". Montana is the 4th-most extensive, but the 7th-least populous and the 3rd-least densely populated of the 50 United States. The economy is primarily based on services, with ranching, wheat farming, oil and coal mining in the east, and lumber, tourism, and hard rock mining in the west. Millions of tourists annually visit Glacier National Park, the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, and three of the five entrances to Yellowstone National Park.
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Nauru
Coordinates: 0°31′38″S 166°56′12″E / 0.527288°S 166.936724°E / -0.527288; 166.936724
Nauru (Englishi/nɑːˈuːruː/ nah-OO-roo), officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 kilometres (186 mi) to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just 21 square kilometres (8.1 sq mi). With just over 9,322 residents, it is the second least-populated country after Vatican City.
Settled by Micronesian and Polynesian people, Nauru was annexed and claimed as a colony by the German Empire in the late 19th century. After World War I, Nauru became a League of Nations mandate administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. During World War II, Nauru was occupied by Japanese troops, who were bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. After the war ended, it entered into trusteeship again. Nauru gained its independence in 1968.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Nauru was a "rentier state". Nauru is a phosphate rock island, with rich deposits close to the surface, which allow for simple strip mining operations; moreover, it has some phosphate reserves which are presently (as of 2011) not economically viable for extraction. Nevertheless, this island was a major exporter of phosphate starting in 1907, when the Pacific Phosphate Company began mining there, through the formation of the British Phosphate Commission in 1919, and continuing after independence. This returned to Nauru full control of its minerals under the Nauru Phosphate Corporation, until the deposits ran out during the 1980s. For this reason, Nauru briefly boasted the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Nebraska
Nebraska (i/nəˈbræskə/) is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. Its state capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River.
The state is crossed by many historic trails, but it was the California Gold Rush that first brought large numbers here, and it became a state in 1867. Certain landmarks still compete for the notional distinction 'Where the West Begins'.
There are wide variations between winter and summer temperatures, and violent thunderstorms and tornadoes are common. The state is characterized by treeless prairie, ideal for cattle-grazing, and it is a major producer of beef, as well as pork, maize and soybeans. Nebraska is overwhelmingly rural, as the 8th least-densely populated state of the United States.
Ethnically, the largest group are German-Americans, and the state has the biggest Czech-American population per head. During the Great Migration, many African Americans came to Omaha, and they continue to campaign for improved conditions. More recently, Native American activism has increased, with a drive for self-determination in a climate of co-operation with state officials on regional issues. It is traditionally a Republican-voting state.
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Nevada
Nevada (i/nəˈvædə/ or /nəˈvɒdə/) is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 35th most populous, and the 9th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in one single county, Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, where the state's three largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada's capital is Carson City.
Nevada is largely desert and semiarid, with much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada mountains lie on the western edge. Approximately 86% of the state's land is owned by the US government under various jurisdictions, both civilian and military.
The name Nevada is derived from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains, which means "snow-capped mountain range" in Spanish. The land comprising the modern state was inhabited by Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe tribes prior to European contact. It was subsequently claimed by Spain as a part of Alta California until the Mexican War of Independence brought it under Mexican control. The United States gained the territory in 1848 following its victory in the Mexican-American War and the area was eventually incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a population boom that was an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31, 1864.
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New Caledonia
Coordinates: 21°15′S 165°18′E / 21.25°S 165.30°E / -21.25; 165.30
New Caledonia (French: Nouvelle-Calédonie) is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) east of Australia and about 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands in the Coral Sea are also part of New Caledonia. Locals refer to Grande Terre as "Le Caillou", the rock.
New Caledonia has a land area of 18,576 square kilometres (7,172 sq mi). The population (2011 estimate) is 256,275. The capital of the territory is Nouméa.
The earliest traces of human presence in New Caledonia date back to the Lapita period. The Lapita were highly skilled navigators and agriculturists with influence over a large area of the Pacific.
The British first sighted New Caledonia on September 4, 1774, during the second voyage of Captain James Cook. He named the territory New Caledonia, as the north-east of the island reminded him of Scotland. The west coast of Grande Terre was approached by Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse in 1788, shortly before his disappearance, and the Loyalty Islands were first visited in 1796. From then until 1840, only a few sporadic contacts with the archipelago were recorded. Contacts became more frequent after 1840, because of the interest in sandalwood from New Caledonia.
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New Hampshire
New Hampshire (i/njuːˈhæmpʃər/) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. New Hampshire is the 5th least extensive and the 9th least populous of the 50 United States.
It became the first post-colonial sovereign nation in the Americas when it broke off from Great Britain in January 1776, and six months later was one of the original thirteen states that founded the United States of America. In June 1788, it became the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution, bringing that document into effect. New Hampshire was the first U.S. state to have its own state constitution.
It is known internationally for the New Hampshire primary, the first primary in the U.S. presidential election cycle. Concord is the state capital, while Manchester is the largest city in the state. It has no general sales tax, nor is personal income (other than interest and dividends) taxed at either the state or local level.
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New Jersey
New Jersey (i/nuː ˈdʒɜrzi/) is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the U.S. state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania, and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey is the 4th least extensive, but the 11th most populous and the most densely populated of the 50 United States. New Jersey lies mostly within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is also the third wealthiest by 2009–2010 median household income.
The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years, with historical tribes such as the Lenape along the coast. In the early 17th century, the Dutch and the Swedes made the first European settlements. The British later seized control of the region, naming it the Province of New Jersey. It was granted as a colony to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. At this time, it was named after the largest of the British Channel Islands, Jersey, Carteret's birthplace. New Jersey was the site of several decisive battles during the American Revolutionary War.
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New Mexico
New Mexico (i/nuː ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/) is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. New Mexico is the 5th most extensive, the 36th most populous, and the 6th least densely populated of the 50 United States.
Inhabited by Native American populations for many centuries, New Mexico has also been part of the Imperial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S. territory. Among U.S. states, New Mexico has the highest percentage of Hispanics, including descendants of Spanish colonists and recent immigrants from Latin America. It also has the second-highest percentage of Native Americans, after Alaska, and the fourth-highest total number of Native Americans after California, Oklahoma, and Arizona. The tribes in the state consist of mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong Hispanic and Native American influences. The flag of New Mexico is represented by the red and gold colors, which represent Spain, as well as the Zia symbol, an ancient Native American symbol for the sun.
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New York
New York (/njuː ˈjɔrk/; locally IPA: [nɪu ˈjɔək] or [nuː ˈjɔɹk] (
listen)) is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. New York is the 27th most extensive, the 3rd most populous, and the 7th most densely populated of the 50 United States. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border with Rhode Island east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Ontario to the west and north, and Quebec to the north. The state of New York is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City.
New York City, with a population of over 8.1 million, is the most populous city in the United States. Alone, it makes up over 40 percent of the population of New York state. It is known for its status as a center for finance and culture and for its status as the largest gateway for immigration to the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, New York City is also a destination of choice for many foreign visitors. Both the state and city were named for the 17th century Duke of York, James Stuart, future James II and VII of England and Scotland.
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New Zealand
New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa) is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ as well as numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans.
During its long isolation, New Zealand developed a distinctive biodiversity of both animal and plant life. Most notable are the large number of unique bird species, many of which became extinct after the arrival of humans and introduced mammals. With a mild maritime climate, the land was mostly covered in forest. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions caused by the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates clashing beneath the earth's surface.
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Niue
Niue ( /ˈnjuːeɪ/ NEW-ay; Niuean: Niuē) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to the southeast. The land area is 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) with about 1,400 people who are predominantly Polynesian.
Though self-governing, Niue is in free association with New Zealand, and lacks full sovereignty. All Niueans are New Zealand citizens and Queen Elizabeth II is Niue's head of state in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand. Most diplomatic relations are conducted by New Zealand on Niue's behalf. 90-95% of Niuean people live in New Zealand, along with about 70% of the speakers of the Niuean language.[citation needed]
In 2003, Niue became the world's first "WiFi nation", in which free wireless Internet access is provided throughout the country by The Internet Users Society-Niue.
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Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island (i/ˈnɔrfək ˈaɪlənd/; Norfuk: Norfuk Ailen) is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia, 1,412 kilometres (877 mi) directly east of mainland Evans Head, and about 600 kilometres (370 mi) from Lord Howe Island. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance. Together with two neighbouring islands, it forms one of Australia's external territories.
Originally colonised by East Polynesians, Norfolk Island was colonised by Britain as part of its settlement in Australia in 1788. It then served as a convict penal settlement until 1794, when it was abandoned until 1856, when permanent residence on the island for civilians began. In 1901, the island became a part of the Commonwealth of Australia which it has remained until this day.
The evergreen Norfolk Island pine is a symbol of the island and thus pictured on its flag (see illustration). Native to the island, the pine is a key export industry for Norfolk Island, being a popular ornamental tree on mainland Australia, where two related species grow, and also in Europe.
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North Carolina
North Carolina (i/ˌnɔrθ kærəˈlaɪnə/) is a state in the Southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina is the 28th most extensive and the 10th most populous of the 50 United States.
North Carolina is comprised of 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. In the past five decades, North Carolina's economy has undergone a transition from heavy reliance upon tobacco and furniture making to a more diversified economy with engineering, biotechnology, and finance sectors.
North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet (2,037 m) at Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US. The climate of the coastal plains is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles (500 km) from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.
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North Dakota
North Dakota (i/ˌnɔrθ dəˈkoʊtə/) is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th most extensive, but the 3rd least populous and the 4th least densely populated of the 50 United States. North Dakota was created from the northern portion of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with South Dakota.
The state capital is Bismarck and the largest city is Fargo. The primary public universities are located in Grand Forks and Fargo. The U.S. Air Force operates air bases at Minot AFB and Grand Forks AFB.
For more than a decade, the state has had a strong economy, with unemployment lower than the national average, job and population growth, and low housing vacancies. Much of the growth has been based on development of the Bakken oil shale fields in the western part of the state, but it has also had growth in the technology and service sectors. Flooding in June 2011 has caused extensive damage to Minot and threatened Bismarck, the capital city.
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Ohio
Ohio (i/oʊˈhaɪ.oʊ/) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Ohio is the 34th most extensive, the 7th most populous, and the 10th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.
The name "Ohio" originated from Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning "great river". The state, originally partitioned from the Northwest Territory, was admitted to the Union as the 17th state (and the first under the Northwest Ordinance) on March 1, 1803. Although there are conflicting narratives regarding the origin of the nickname, Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" (relating to the Ohio buckeye tree) and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".
The government of Ohio is composed of the executive branch, led by the Governor; the legislative branch, which comprises the Ohio General Assembly; and the judicial branch, which is led by the Supreme Court. Currently, Ohio occupies 18 seats in the United States House of Representatives. Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state and a bellwether in national elections.
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Oklahoma
Oklahoma (i/ˌoʊkləˈhoʊmə/) (Pawnee: Uukuhuúwa , Cayuga: Gahnawiyoˀgeh ) is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. Oklahoma is the 20th most extensive and the 28th most populous of the 50 United States. The state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people", and it is known informally by its nickname, The Sooner State. Formed by the combination of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory on November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was the 46th state to enter the union. Its residents are known as Oklahomans or, informally "Okies", and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.
A major producer of natural gas, oil, and agriculture, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. It has one of the fastest growing economies in the nation, ranking among the top states in per capita income growth and gross domestic product growth. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly 60 percent of Oklahomans living in their metropolitan statistical areas.
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Oregon
Oregon (i/ˈɔrɨɡən/ ORR-ə-gən) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern boundaries, respectively. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers, and settlers who formed an autonomous government in Oregon Country in 1843. The Oregon Territory was created in 1848, and Oregon became the 33rd state on February 14, 1859.
Oregon is the 9th most extensive and the 27th most populous of the 50 United States. Salem is the state's capital and third-most-populous city; Portland is the most populous. Portland is the 29th-largest U.S. city, with a population of 583,776 (2010 US Census) and a metro population of 2,241,841 (2009 estimate), the 23rd-largest U.S. metro area. The valley of the Willamette River in western Oregon is the state's most densely populated area and is home to eight of the ten most populous cities.
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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 (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
At 165.2 million square kilometres (64.1 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans early in the 16th century. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del Sur (South Sea). The ocean's current name was given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who encountered favourable winds as he reached the ocean and called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".
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Palau
Palau (i/pəˈlaʊ/, sometimes spelled Belau or Pelew), officially the Republic of Palau (Palauan: Beluu ęr a Belau), is an island country located in the western Pacific Ocean. Geographically part of the larger island group of Micronesia, with the country's population of around 21,000 people spread out over 250 islands forming the western chain of the Caroline Islands. The islands share maritime boundaries with Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The most populous island in the group is Koror, with the capital city, Ngerulmud, located on nearby Babeldaob.
The country were originally settled around 3000 years ago by migrants from the Philippines, with a Negrito population sustained until around 900 years ago. The islands were first visited by Europeans in the 18th century, and were made part of the Spanish East Indies in 1885. Following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands were sold to Imperial Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty, where they were administered as part of German New Guinea. The Imperial Japanese Navy conquered Palau during World War I, and the islands were later made a part of the Japanese-ruled South Pacific Mandate by the League of Nations. During World War II, skirmishes, including the major Battle of Peleliu, were fought between American and Japanese troops as part of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, Palau was made a part of the United States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1947. Having voted against joining the newly-independent Federated States of Micronesia in 1979, the islands gained full sovereignty in 1994 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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Panama Canal
The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is an 82-kilometre (51 mi) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade.
Work on the canal, which began in 1880, was completed in 1914, making it no longer necessary for ships to sail the lengthy Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South America and to navigate the dangerous waters of the Strait of Magellan. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut made it possible for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in half the time previously required. The shorter, faster, safer route to the U.S. West Coast and to nations in and along the Pacific Ocean allowed those places to become more integrated with the world economy.
Ownership of the territory that is now the Panama Canal was first Colombian, then French and then American before coming under the control of the Panamanian government in 1999. The Panama Canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships when it opened in 1914, to 14,702 vessels in 2008, the latter measuring a total of 309.6 million Panama Canal/Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons. By 2008, more than 815,000 vessels had passed through the canal, many of them much larger than the original planners could have envisioned; the largest ships that can transit the canal today are called Panamax. The American Society of Civil Engineers has named the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG; Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.
Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth. According to recent data, 841 different languages are listed for the country, although 11 of these have no known living speakers. . (A detailed series of language maps of Papua New Guinea may be found at Ethnologue) There may be at least as many traditional societies,out of a population of about 6.2 million. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18% of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.
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Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (i/ˌpɛnsɨlˈveɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a US state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, and the Great Lakes Region. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Ontario, Canada to the northwest, New York to the north, and New Jersey to the east.
Pennsylvania is the 33rd most extensive, the 6th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of shoreline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
Pennsylvania is 170 miles (274 km) north to south and 283 miles (455 km) east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles (119,282 km2), 44,817 square miles (116,075 km2) are land, 490 square miles (1,269 km2) are inland waters, and 749 square miles (1,940 km2) are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles (82 km) of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles (92 km) of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary.
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Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands ( /ˈpɪtkɛərn/;Pitkern: Pitkern Ailen), officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory. The four islands—named Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno—are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and have a total land area of about 18 square miles (47 km2). Only Pitcairn, the second largest and measuring about 2 miles (3.2 km) across, is inhabited.
The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 48 inhabitants (currently from four main families: Christian, Warren, Young, and Brown), Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world. The United Nations Committee on Decolonisation includes the Pitcairn Islands on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
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Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (/ˌpɔrtə ˈriːkoʊ/ or /ˌpwɛərtə ˈriːkoʊ/), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, [esˈtaðo ˈlibɾe asoˈsjaðo ðe ˈpweɾto ˈriko]—literally, "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"), is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") comprises an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area of the Greater Antilles. However, it ranks third in population amongst that group of four islands, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. Due to its location, Puerto Rico enjoys a tropical climate and also experiences the Atlantic hurricane season.
Originally populated for centuries by indigenous aboriginal peoples known as Taínos, the island was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain during his second voyage to the Americas on November 19, 1493. Under Spanish rule, the island was colonized and the indigenous population was forced into slavery and nearly wiped out due to, among other things, European infectious diseases. The remaining population was emancipated by King Charles I in 1520. Spain possessed Puerto Rico for over 400 years, despite attempts at capture of the island by the French, Dutch, and British. The Spanish Crown, in an attempt to keep Puerto Rico from gaining its independence, revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. The decree was printed in three languages — Spanish, English and French — and it fostered the immigration of hundreds of non-Spanish European families.
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Rhode Island
Rhode Island (i/ˌroʊd ˈaɪlɨnd/ or /rɵˈdaɪlɨnd/), officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the United States. Rhode Island is the smallest in area, the 8th least populous, but the 2nd most densely populated of the 50 United States. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to the west and Massachusetts to the north and east, and it shares a water boundary with New York's Long Island to the southwest.
Rhode Island was the first of the 13 original colonies to declare independence from British rule, declaring itself independent on May 4, 1776, two months before any other state in the whole U.S. and the convention. The state was also the last to ratify the United States Constitution.
Rhode Island's official nickname is "The Ocean State", a reference to the state's geography, since Rhode Island has several large bays and inlets that amount to about 14% of its total area. Its land area is 1,045 square miles (2706 km2), but its total area is significantly larger.
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Samoa
Samoa (i/səˈmoʊ.ə/; Samoan: Sāmoa, IPA: [ˌsaːˈmoa]), officially the Independent State of Samoa (Samoan: Malo Sa'oloto Tuto'atasi o Sāmoa), formerly known as Western Samoa, is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in Polynesia, Savai'i. The capital city, Apia, and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.
Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976. The entire island group, inclusive of American Samoa, was called Navigators Islands by European explorers before the 20th century because of the Samoans' seafaring skills.
The oldest date so far from pre-historic remains in Samoa has been calculated by New Zealand scientists to a likely true age of circa 3,000 years ago from a Lapita site at Mulifanua during the 1970s.
The origins of the Samoans is closely linked to modern research about Polynesia in various scientific disciplines such as genetics, linguistics and anthropology. Scientific research is ongoing although a number of different theories exist; including one proposing that the Samoans originated from Austronesian predecessors during the terminal eastward Lapita expansion period from Southeast Asia and Melanesia between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE. The Samoan origins are currently being reassessed due to new scientific evidence and carbon dating findings from 2003 and onwards.
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Solomon Islands
Solomon Islandsi/ˈsɒləmən ˈaɪləndz/ is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for many thousands of years. Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to arrive in Solomon Islands in 1568 and named them Islas Salomón. The United Kingdom established a protectorate over the Solomon Islands in 1893. In the Second World War there was fierce fighting between the Americans and the Japanese in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1942–45, including the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Self-government was achieved in 1976 and independence two years later. The Solomon Islands is a constitutional monarchy with the Queen of the Solomon Islands, at present Elizabeth II, as the head of state. Gordon Lilo Darcy is the eleventh and current Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands.
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South Carolina
South Carolina (i/ˌsaʊθ kærəˈlaɪnə/) is a state in the Southeastern United States. It is bordered to the north by North Carolina; to the south and west by Georgia, located across the Savannah River; and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from the British Crown during the American Revolution. The colony was originally named by King Charles II of England in honor of his father Charles I (Carolus being Latin for Charles). South Carolina was the 8th state to ratify the US Constitution and become a state which it did on May 23, 1788. South Carolina later became the first state to vote to secede from the Union which it did on December 20, 1860. It was readmitted to the United States on June 25, 1868.
South Carolina is the 40th most extensive and the 24th most populous of the 50 United States. South Carolina comprises 46 counties. The capital and largest city of the state is Columbia.
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South Dakota
South Dakota (i/ˌsaʊθ dəˈkoʊtə/) is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota is the 17th most extensive, but the 5th least populous and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Once the southern portion of the Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. Pierre is the state capital and Sioux Falls, with a population of nearly 160,000, is South Dakota's largest city.
South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and fertile soil in this area is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending.
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Tennessee
Tennessee (i/tɛnɨˈsiː/) (Cherokee: ᏔᎾᏏ) is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. Tennessee is the 36th most extensive and the 17th most populous of the 50 United States. Tennessee is bordered by Kentucky and Virginia to the north, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, and Arkansas and Missouri to the west. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms the state's western border. Tennessee's capital and second largest city is Nashville, which has a population of 626,144.Memphis is the state's largest city, with a population of 670,902.
The state of Tennessee is rooted in the Watauga Association, a 1772 frontier pact generally regarded as the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians. What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war.
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Texas
Texas (i/ˈtɛksəs/) (Alibamu: Teksi ) is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km2), and a growing population of 25.7 million residents.
During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.
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Tokelau
Tokelau ( /ˈtoʊkəlaʊ/) is a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean that consists of three tropical coral atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400. The atolls lie north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands (both island groups belonging to Kiribati) and northwest of the Cook Islands.
The United Nations General Assembly designated Tokelau a Non-Self-Governing Territory. Until 1976 the official name was Tokelau Islands. Tokelau is sometimes referred to by the older, colonial name of The Union Islands.
The name Tokelau is a Polynesian word meaning "North Wind". The islands were named the Union Islands and Union Group by European explorers at an unknown time. Tokelau Islands was adopted as the name in 1946, and was contracted to Tokelau on 9 December 1976.
The change from Tokelau Islands to Tokelau marked a slight shift in emphasis, with consequences in regional diplomacy, in that the term Tokelau Islands clearly and substantially referred to a geographical expression, that is, a range of islands, whatever else it may connote. It is not necessarily controversial to refer by name to a range of islands, even though they may come under two or more political jurisdictions. Tokelau, on the other hand, can be taken to refer more immediately to some concept of nationhood, arguably infusing increased meaning to the draft 2006 independence constitution of Tokelau (which somewhat controversially claims Tokelauan inhabited Olohega (or Swains Island), currently part of American Samoa, as part of its national territory).[citation needed]
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Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a sovereign state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific. Fifty-two of the islands are inhabited.
The Kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line located at about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii.
Tonga also became known as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773. He happened to arrive at the time of the ʻinasi festival, the yearly donation of the first fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga, the islands' paramount chief, and received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, in reality the chiefs had wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but could not agree on a plan.
Tonga is also the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonisation. In 2010, Tonga took a decisive step towards becoming a fully functioning constitutional monarchy after legislative reforms paved the way for its first ever fully representative elections which resulted in the election of Noble Sialeʻataongo Tuʻivakanō as its first democratically elected Prime Minister.
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Tuvalu
Tuvalu (i/tuːˈvɑːluː/ too-VAH-loo or /ˈtuːvəluː/ TOO-və-loo), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls spread out from 6° to 10° south. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. Its population of 10,544 makes it the third-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City and Nauru having fewer inhabitants. In terms of physical land size, at just 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi) Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger only than the Vatican City at 0.44 km2 (0.17 sq mi), Monaco at 1.98 km2 (0.76 sq mi) and Nauru at 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi).
The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesian people. In 1568 Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña sailed through the islands and is understood to have sighted Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. In 1819 the island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island; the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay (1812–1876). The islands came under Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when the Ellice Islands were declared a British protectorate by Captain Gibson, R. N. of HMS Curaçao between 9th and 16 October 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered as British protectorate by a Resident Commissioner from 1892 to 1916 as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), and later as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1974.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Utah
Utah (/ˈjuːtɔː/ ori/ˈjuːtɑː/) (Arapaho: Wo'tééneihí' ) is a state in the Western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the Union on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th-most extensive, the 34th-most populous, and the 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,817,222 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. The name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe and means "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico.
Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state in the Union. It is home to the Salt Lake Temple, and approximately 60% of Utahns are reported to be members of LDS Church which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life.
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Vanuatu
Vanuatu (Englishi/ˌvɑːnuːˈɑːtuː/ vah-noo-AH-too or /vænˈwɑːtuː/ van-WAH-too; Bislama IPA: [vanuaˈtu]), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 500 kilometres (310 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós who arrived in Espiritu Santo in 1605. In the 1880s France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through a British–French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was created in 1980.
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Vermont
Vermonti/vɜrˈmɒnt/ is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Vermont is the 6th least extensive and the 2nd least populous of the 50 United States. It is the only New England state not bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermont's western border, which it shares with the state of New York. The Green Mountains are within the state. Vermont is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north.
Originally inhabited by two major Native American tribes (the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and the Iroquois), much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France during its early colonial period. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years' War (also called the French and Indian War). For many years, the nearby colonies, especially New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area (then called the New Hampshire Grants). Settlers who held land titles granted by these colonies were opposed by the Green Mountain Boys militia, which eventually prevailed in creating an independent state, the Vermont Republic. Founded in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, the republic lasted for fourteen years. Vermont is one of seventeen U.S. states (along with Texas, Hawaii, the brief California Republic, and each of the original Thirteen Colonies) to have had a sovereign government in the past. In 1791, Vermont joined the United States as the 14th state, the first outside the original 13 Colonies. It abolished slavery while still independent, and upon joining the Union became the first state to have done so.
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Virginia
Virginia (i/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.
The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.
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Wallis and Futuna
Wallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands (French: Wallis et Futuna or Territoire des îles Wallis et Futuna, Fakauvea and Fakafutuna: Uvea mo Futuna), is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific between Tuvalu to the northwest, Rotuma of Fiji to the west, the main part of Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast, Samoa to the east, the New Zealand-associated state of Tokelau to the northeast and to a more distant north the Phoenix Islands (Kiribati). (However, Wallis and Futuna is not part of, nor even contiguous with, French Polynesia. Wallis and Futuna is located at the very opposite western end of Polynesia.)
Its land area is 264 km2 with a population of about 15,000. Mata-Utu is the capital and biggest city. The territory is made up of three main volcanic tropical islands along with a number of tiny islets, and is split into two island groups that lie about 260 km apart, namely Wallis Islands (Uvea) in the northeast, and Hoorn Islands (also called the Futuna Islands) in the southwest, including Futuna Island proper and the mostly uninhabited Alofi Island.
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West Virginia
West Virginia (i/ˌwɛst vərˈdʒɪnjə/) is a state in the Appalachian region of the Eastern United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east. West Virginia is the 41st most extensive and the 37th most populous of the 50 United States. The capital and largest city is Charleston.
West Virginia became a state following the Wheeling Conventions and broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The new state was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War border state. West Virginia was the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state, and was one of two states formed during the American Civil War (the other one being Nevada, which separated from Utah Territory).
The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the South. The northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio, with the West Virginia cities of Wheeling and Weirton just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than 70 miles (110 km) from North Carolina. Huntington in the southwest is close to the states of Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the Eastern Panhandle region are considered to be a part of the Washington metropolitan area, in between the states of Maryland and Virginia. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in several geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. Notably, it is the only state that is entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission; the area is commonly defined as "Appalachia".
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Wisconsin
Wisconsin (i/wɨsˈkɒnsɨn/) is a US state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin is the 23rd most extensive and the 20th most populous of the 50 United States. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. The state is divided into 72 counties.
The word Wisconsin originates from the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River and record its name, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in his journal. This spelling was later corrupted to Ouisconsin by other French explorers, and over time this version became the French name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling to its modern form when they began to arrive in greater numbers during the early 19th century. The current spelling was made official by the legislature of Wisconsin Territory in 1845.
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Wyoming
Wyoming (i/waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/) is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. Wyoming is the 10th most extensive, but the least populous and the 2nd least densely populated of the 50 States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High Plains. Cheyenne is the capital and the most populous city of Wyoming with a population of nearly 60,000 people within its city proper.
As specified in the designating legislation for the Territory of Wyoming, Wyoming's borders are lines of latitude, 41°N and 45°N, and longitude, 104°3'W and 111°3'W (27° W and 34° W of the Washington Meridian), making the shape of the state a latitude-longitude quadrangle. Wyoming is one of only three states (along with Colorado and Utah) to have borders along only straight latitudinal and longitudinal lines, rather than being defined by natural landmarks. Due to surveying inaccuracies during the 19th century, Wyoming's legal border deviates from the true latitude and longitude lines by up to half of a mile (.8 km) in some spots, especially in the mountainous region along the 45th parallel. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the ninth largest state in the United States in total area, containing 97,818 square miles (253,350 km2) and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444 km); and from the east to the west border is 365 miles (587 km) at its south end and 342 miles (550 km) at the north end.
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Edmund Fanning
Edmund Fanning (July 16, 1769 – April 23, 1841) was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific."
Born in Stonington, Connecticut, he went to sea as a cabin boy at the age of 14, and by the age of 24 was captain of a West Indian brig in which he visited the South Pacific for the first time.
A successful trader, Fanning made a fortune in the China trade, killing seals in the South Pacific and exchanging their skins in China for silks, spices, and tea; which he in turn sold in New York City. As master of the Betsey in 1797-1798, he discovered three South Pacific Islands — Fanning, Washington, and Palmyra — which are collectively known as the Fanning Islands. (Fanning Island, today known as Tabuaeran, is today part of Kiribati, while Palmyra, claimed by the Hawaiian Government in 1862 and owned for many years by a Hawaiian family, was purchased in 2000 by the Nature Conservancy for an ongoing study of global warming and its effect on coral reefs.)
When he discovered Palmyra Atoll, many believe[weasel words] it to be a paranormal occurrence that lends to the atoll's mysticism. Fanning's ship was in command of the first mate at night while Fanning slept. Fanning awoke three times in the middle of the night, each time awaking out of bed. On the third time Fanning took this as a premonition and ordered the first mate to heave to. In the morning the ship resumed its travel, but only traveled a mile before reaching the reef of Palmyra. Had the ship continued its course at night, the entire crew might have perished.
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Hart Bochner
Hart Matthew Bochner (born October 3, 1956) is a Canadian film actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.
Bochner was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Ruth (née Roher), a concert pianist, and actor Lloyd Bochner. His family is Jewish.
Bochner appeared in such films as Islands in the Stream (1977), Breaking Away (1979), Terror Train (1980), Rich and Famous (1981), Supergirl (1984), Die Hard (1988) and Apartment Zero (also 1988). In the late 1990s, Bochner starred opposite Susan Sarandon in Anywhere But Here (1999) and then appeared in Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000).
On television, Bochner had a key role as Byron Henry in the 1988 ABC miniseries War and Remembrance. More recently, he starred as Zach, boyfriend of Molly Kagan (Debra Messing), on USA Network's short-lived series The Starter Wife (2008).
Among the films he has directed are PCU and High School High.
Bochner is a board member of the Environmental Media Awards.
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James Brolin
James Brolin /ˈbroʊlɨn/; born July 18, 1940) is an American actor, producer and director, best known for his roles in soap operas, movies, sitcoms, and television. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin and husband of singer/actress Barbra Streisand.
Brolin was born Craig Kenneth Bruderlin in Los Angeles, California. The eldest of two brothers and two sisters, he was the son of Helen Sue (née Mansur), a homemaker, and Henry Hurst Bruderlin, a building contractor. The family settled in Westwood after his birth. As a young child, he was apparently more interested in animals and airplanes than in acting. When Brolin was 10 in 1950, he began building and flying model airplanes. As a teenaged moviegoer in the mid-1950s he was particularly fascinated with actor James Dean. When his parents invited a director over to his family's house for dinner before auditioning, he met another fellow actor and classmate, Ryan O'Neal, who was about a year younger than Brolin. The two clicked and later enrolled in Los Angeles's renowned University High School. However, Bruderlin's own acting exposed his stifling shyness. His assurance grew when O'Neal invited him to a casting agency. Brolin graduated from high school in 1958, and his family was already encouraging him to become an actor like O'Neal.
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Kamehameha IV
Kamehameha IV, born Alexander ʻIolani Liholiho Keawenui (1834–1863), reigned as the fourth king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from January 11, 1855 to November 30, 1863.
Alexander was born on February 9, 1834 in Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu. His father was High Chief Mataio Kekūanāoʻa, Royal Governor of Oʻahu. His mother was Princess Elizabeth Kīnaʻu the Kuhina Nui or Prime Minister of the Kingdom. He was the grandson of Kamehameha I, first monarch of all the islands. As a toddler, Alexander was adopted by his uncle, King Kamehameha III who decreed Alexander heir to the throne and raised him as the crown prince.
Alexander Liholiho was educated by Calvinist missionaries Amos and Juliette Cooke at the Chiefs' Children's School (later known as Royal School) in Honolulu. He was accompanied by 30 attendants (kahu) when he arrived, but they were sent home and for the first time Liholiho was on his own. Alexander Liholiho played the flute and the piano, and enjoyed singing, acting, and cricket. When he was 14 he left the Royal School and went to law school. When he was 15, he went on a government trip to England, the United States, and Panama. Liholiho was able to record the events of his trip in a journal.
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Leslie Vincent
Leslie Vincent (September 6, 1909 — February 1, 2001) was an American actor.
Born in 1909 as Leslie Fullard-Leo, he studied acting at the Royal Academy in London. He appeared in more than 30 films including Forever Amber, In Harm's Way, Destry Rides Again and Paris Underground.
Vincent's family, the Fullard-Leo family, purchased the Palmyra Atoll (except for some minor islets) on August 19, 1922 for $15,000.00 from Henry Ernest Cooper, and established the Palmyra Copra Company. The family was involved, decades later, in a lawsuit with the United States government over ownership of the atoll. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Fullard-Leo family.
Vincent retired from film and entered the hotel business in Hawaii, where he died on February 1, 2001 in Honolulu, aged 91. He had two brothers, Dudley and Ainsley, also of Honolulu.
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Rachel Ward
Rachel Claire Ward AM (born 12 September 1957) is a British actress, columnist, film director, and screenwriter who has primarily pursued her career in Australia.
Rachel Ward was born in Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, the daughter of Claire Leonora (née Baring) and the Hon. Peter Alistair Ward. Her grandfathers were William Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley and the cricketer Giles Baring; Ward is also the great-granddaughter of William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, Governor-General of Australia 1908–11, and sister of environmental campaigner and former actress Tracy Louise Ward, Marchioness of Worcester. She attended the Byam Shaw School of Art in London before leaving at 16 to become a top fashion model. She briefly dated David Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy.
In 1981 she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for "New Star of the Year" for her role in the film Sharky's Machine starring with Burt Reynolds. The following year she starred in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid with Steve Martin. Her big break came in 1983 when she starred opposite Richard Chamberlain as the lead role portraying Meggie Cleary in the television mini-series The Thorn Birds for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. Also in 1983, U.S. audiences voted her one of the 10 most beautiful women. She played Jess in the film-noir remake Against All Odds in 1984 with Jeff Bridges.
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Vincent Bugliosi
Vincent Bugliosi ( /ˌbuːliˈoʊsi/; born August 18, 1934) is an American attorney and author, best known for prosecuting Charles Manson and other defendants accused of the Tate-LaBianca murders, and for defending Stephanie Stearns in the Sea Wind murders of 1974. His most recent books are Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (2007), The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (2008), and Divinity of Doubt: The God Question (2011).
Bugliosi, who is of Italian ancestry, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. Bugliosi is a graduate of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, which he attended on a tennis scholarship. In 1964, he received his law degree from UCLA, where he was president of his graduating class.
He is married with two children: Wendy and Vince Jr. He often refers to his wife, Gail, in his books, referencing her understanding and patience with him. He has also stated that he is an agnostic, although open to the ideas of deism.
As a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, he successfully prosecuted Charles Manson and several other members of his "family" for the 1969 murders of Sharon Tate and six others. He lost only one of the 106 felony cases he tried as a prosecutor, which included winning 21 out of 21 murder cases. He later wrote, jointly with Curt Gentry, a book about the Manson trial called Helter Skelter. The book went on to become the biggest selling true crime book in publishing history with over 7 million copies sold.
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William Ansel Kinney
William Ansel Kinney (1860–1930) was a lawyer and politician in the Kingdom of Hawaii, through the Republic of Hawaii and into the Territory of Hawaii.
William Ansel Kinney was born October 16, 1860 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was William Kinney, who was born April 15, 1832 in Chebogue, Nova Scotia. His uncle Joseph Robbins Kinney (1839–1919) was a member of the Canadian House of Commons. His father came to the Hawaiian Islands in the 1850s and married his mother Caroline Dailey (died March 25, 1897) on July 6, 1857. His father then married up to three different native Hawaiian women, having many other children by them. For example, half-brother William Kihapiʻilani Kinney (1868–1953) married Mary Francesca Vierra, and their son Ernest Kaipoleimanu Kinney (1906–1987) married Esther Kauikeaulani Kaʻulili and had daughter Rubellite Kawena Kinney Johnson, who became a Hawaiian historian. The youngest half-sibling was Ray Kinney, born in Hilo September 26, 1900, who became a popular musician and composer. His father managed the sugar plantation at Honomu, Hawaii and died June 3, 1915.
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Palmyra Atoll, CASTAWAY, Dead Center South Pacific!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:00
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
All the Vid is real, the scenes depicted may be or may not be contrived. By the third month on the Atoll, I was seeing hula girls swaying under the palms! So my fantasy life grew on it's own. I spent four months on Palmyra from Thanksgiving 07 to the end of February 08. Everyone who wants it should have this kind of experience! Welcome to Palmyra Atoll where??? Take your finger and place in the MIDDLE of the Pacific Ocean, yup, there's where this video was recorded by yours truly, Michael E. Murray. Who am I??? A no-buddy, but yet a, some buddy on that particular tour with the Nature Conservancy. I took hundreds of pictures and videos during my four month stay on the Atoll. It was AN INCREDIBLE time! Visit my web site palmyragazette.org for more information and inCITE on this opportunity of a LIFE TIME!!.
http://wn.com/Palmyra_Atoll,_CASTAWAY,_Dead_Center_South_Pacific!
All the Vid is real, the scenes depicted may be or may not be contrived. By the third month on the Atoll, I was seeing hula girls swaying under the palms! So my fantasy life grew on it's own. I spent four months on Palmyra from Thanksgiving 07 to the end of February 08. Everyone who wants it should have this kind of experience! Welcome to Palmyra Atoll where??? Take your finger and place in the MIDDLE of the Pacific Ocean, yup, there's where this video was recorded by yours truly, Michael E. Murray. Who am I??? A no-buddy, but yet a, some buddy on that particular tour with the Nature Conservancy. I took hundreds of pictures and videos during my four month stay on the Atoll. It was AN INCREDIBLE time! Visit my web site palmyragazette.org for more information and inCITE on this opportunity of a LIFE TIME!!.
Palmyra Atoll summer 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:56
- Updated: 25 Dec 2012
A snapshot of what I saw during the time I spent on Palmyra Atoll from July 18 - Aug 20, 2012. Photos and video by Ana S. Guerra Music by Vitamin String Quartet
http://wn.com/Palmyra_Atoll_summer_2012
A snapshot of what I saw during the time I spent on Palmyra Atoll from July 18 - Aug 20, 2012. Photos and video by Ana S. Guerra Music by Vitamin String Quartet
- published: 23 Aug 2012
- views: 331
- author: awar5
Hōkūle'a: Sam Gon Speaks About Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:58
- Updated: 08 Aug 2012
Senior Scientist and Cultural Advisor for the Nature Conservancy Hawai'i, Sam Ohu Gon, shares why Palmyra is so special and why Hōkūle'a was allowed to visit this protected atoll. The Hōkūle'a just completed a sail to Palmyra Atoll, 1000 miles south of Hawai'i, as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Sam_Gon_Speaks_About_Palmyra_Atoll
Senior Scientist and Cultural Advisor for the Nature Conservancy Hawai'i, Sam Ohu Gon, shares why Palmyra is so special and why Hōkūle'a was allowed to visit this protected atoll. The Hōkūle'a just completed a sail to Palmyra Atoll, 1000 miles south of Hawai'i, as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 27 May 2009
- views: 2009
- author: malamahi
Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Palmyra Atoll is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4--20 'non-occupants' are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departmen...
http://wn.com/Palmyra_Atoll
Palmyra Atoll is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4--20 'non-occupants' are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departmen...
- published: 18 Feb 2012
- views: 1079
- author: alex ohan
Gulfstream G1 Approach and Landing on Palmyra Atoll.AVI
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:06
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Flying for TNC on contract to Palmyra Atoll. 1000 miles south of Honolulu.
http://wn.com/Gulfstream_G1_Approach_and_Landing_on_Palmyra_AtollAVI
Flying for TNC on contract to Palmyra Atoll. 1000 miles south of Honolulu.
- published: 09 Jan 2011
- views: 3479
- author: eersfanpilot
Takeoff from Palmyra Atoll.WMV
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:50
- Updated: 17 Dec 2012
Honolulu bound flight for The Nature Conservancy
http://wn.com/Takeoff_from_Palmyra_AtollWMV
Honolulu bound flight for The Nature Conservancy
- published: 04 Dec 2011
- views: 880
- author: flierman70
Palmyra Atoll - Pacfic Ocean
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:40
- Updated: 29 Nov 2012
Some pictures was taken from google earth.
http://wn.com/Palmyra_Atoll_Pacfic_Ocean
Sharks at Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:38
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
Scientists have found that sharks and other large predators make up more than half the fish biomass at the Palmyra Atoll, an isolated and uninhabited string of islands in the Pacific Ocean owned by The Nature Conservancy. In contrast, marine systems that have been subject to human development, pollution and overfishing tend to be dominated by small plankton-eating fish and algae. We now know that lots of sharks and other predators mean strong reefs and healthy healthy fish populations. Palmyra can provide a baseline for both conservationists and fishery managers as they work to maintain healthy marine systems. Video taken by Dr. Gareth Williams, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
http://wn.com/Sharks_at_Palmyra_Atoll
Scientists have found that sharks and other large predators make up more than half the fish biomass at the Palmyra Atoll, an isolated and uninhabited string of islands in the Pacific Ocean owned by The Nature Conservancy. In contrast, marine systems that have been subject to human development, pollution and overfishing tend to be dominated by small plankton-eating fish and algae. We now know that lots of sharks and other predators mean strong reefs and healthy healthy fish populations. Palmyra can provide a baseline for both conservationists and fishery managers as they work to maintain healthy marine systems. Video taken by Dr. Gareth Williams, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
- published: 14 Apr 2011
- views: 2223
- author: natureconservancy
Palmyra Atoll Thanksgiving Day Parade 2010 (low res)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:19
- Updated: 14 Oct 2012
http://wn.com/Palmyra_Atoll_Thanksgiving_Day_Parade_2010_low_res
Hōkūle'a: Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:38
- Updated: 27 Apr 2011
Mahalo to the Nature Conservancy for this stunning video of the waters off of Palmyra Atoll. Hōkūle'a and her escort boat Kama Hele were privileged to visit Palmyra as part of their first deep-ocean training mission for the Hōkūle'a Worldwide Voyage. During the Worldwide Voyage, the iconic Hawaiian voyaging canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Palmyra_Atoll
Mahalo to the Nature Conservancy for this stunning video of the waters off of Palmyra Atoll. Hōkūle'a and her escort boat Kama Hele were privileged to visit Palmyra as part of their first deep-ocean training mission for the Hōkūle'a Worldwide Voyage. During the Worldwide Voyage, the iconic Hawaiian voyaging canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 25 Mar 2009
- views: 1109
- author: malamahi
kayak sailing at palmyra atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:39
- Updated: 09 May 2012
sailing over coral on the east side of palmyra atoll
http://wn.com/kayak_sailing_at_palmyra_atoll
sailing over coral on the east side of palmyra atoll
- published: 01 Jul 2007
- views: 3194
- author: ceonabita
Shark Research in Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:05
- Updated: 28 Aug 2012
Stanford University is one of several members of of the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium whose institutions are conducting long-range ecological research at Palmyra Atoll, a remote group of islands located about 1000 miles south of Hawaii. Owned and protected by The Nature Conservancy and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Palmyra is one of the few intact coral reef ecosystems in the American tropics. In this video, Stanford Earth Sciences Professor Rob Dunbar, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, explains the importance of Palmyra to marine scientists, including researchers from Hawaii and California studying the black-tipped reef shark, one of several shark species that flourish in Palmyra's remarkably pristine waters (length - 4:04). Video Courtesy of: Mark Shwartz/Woods Institute
http://wn.com/Shark_Research_in_Palmyra_Atoll
Stanford University is one of several members of of the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium whose institutions are conducting long-range ecological research at Palmyra Atoll, a remote group of islands located about 1000 miles south of Hawaii. Owned and protected by The Nature Conservancy and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Palmyra is one of the few intact coral reef ecosystems in the American tropics. In this video, Stanford Earth Sciences Professor Rob Dunbar, senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, explains the importance of Palmyra to marine scientists, including researchers from Hawaii and California studying the black-tipped reef shark, one of several shark species that flourish in Palmyra's remarkably pristine waters (length - 4:04). Video Courtesy of: Mark Shwartz/Woods Institute
- published: 28 Aug 2012
- views: 39
- author: WoodsInstitute1
Porpoise Escort Into Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:04
- Updated: 13 Jul 2011
Heading Back into the Palmyra Atoll channel, we got an awesome porpoise escort! Filmed from the bow of the R/V Aquila, Follow us at Aquilafun.com Anyone want to offer any details on what kind these are?
http://wn.com/Porpoise_Escort_Into_Palmyra_Atoll
Heading Back into the Palmyra Atoll channel, we got an awesome porpoise escort! Filmed from the bow of the R/V Aquila, Follow us at Aquilafun.com Anyone want to offer any details on what kind these are?
- published: 17 Jun 2011
- views: 170
- author: kingaquaticsdude
Seeing Is Believing
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:40
- Updated: 23 Aug 2012
Palmyra Atoll's pristine waters and abundant, vibrant corals are the picture of a healthy, thriving reef. The Nature Conservancy is applying the lessons learned here in the lagoons of this distant atoll to our marine conservation work in Hawai'i. Learn more at www.nature.org
http://wn.com/Seeing_Is_Believing
Palmyra Atoll's pristine waters and abundant, vibrant corals are the picture of a healthy, thriving reef. The Nature Conservancy is applying the lessons learned here in the lagoons of this distant atoll to our marine conservation work in Hawai'i. Learn more at www.nature.org
- published: 10 Aug 2012
- views: 983
- author: natureconservancy
Gray Sharks at Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:36
- Updated: 21 Jun 2011
Dive on the western terrace of the Atoll on 7/9/08
http://wn.com/Gray_Sharks_at_Palmyra_Atoll
Dive on the western terrace of the Atoll on 7/9/08
- published: 10 Jul 2008
- views: 1626
- author: toxosurfer
Manta Ray at Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:38
- Updated: 08 Nov 2011
Manta Ray Alley
http://wn.com/Manta_Ray_at_Palmyra_Atoll
Hōkūle'a: Launch to Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:31
- Updated: 27 Aug 2010
Hōkūle'a crew share their aloha with friends and family before departing on their 1000 mile sail to Palmyra Atoll. This voyage is the first deep-ocean training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Launch_to_Palmyra_Atoll
Hōkūle'a crew share their aloha with friends and family before departing on their 1000 mile sail to Palmyra Atoll. This voyage is the first deep-ocean training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 12 Mar 2009
- views: 1500
- author: malamahi
Hōkūle'a: Approaching Palmyra
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:19
- Updated: 06 Nov 2011
As Hōkūle'a and her escort boat Kama Hele approached Palmyra Atoll, the crews of both vessels were overjoyed to see the water teaming with life. Pods of dolphins and melon headed whales escorted the vessels to Palmyra. In this video Captain Bruce explains how we will approach the atoll to ensure that we do not damage the encircling reef. The Hōkūle'a was sailing to Palmyra Atoll 1000 miles south of Hawai'i as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Approaching_Palmyra
As Hōkūle'a and her escort boat Kama Hele approached Palmyra Atoll, the crews of both vessels were overjoyed to see the water teaming with life. Pods of dolphins and melon headed whales escorted the vessels to Palmyra. In this video Captain Bruce explains how we will approach the atoll to ensure that we do not damage the encircling reef. The Hōkūle'a was sailing to Palmyra Atoll 1000 miles south of Hawai'i as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 26 Mar 2009
- views: 1898
- author: malamahi
Kayakin' with The Boobies at Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:51
- Updated: 17 Aug 2012
Palmyra Atoll = Paradise! It is home to multiple species of boobies: red-footed, masked and brown boobies. I used my GoPro camera on this beautiful day to show their fly-bys.
http://wn.com/Kayakin'_with_The_Boobies_at_Palmyra_Atoll
Palmyra Atoll = Paradise! It is home to multiple species of boobies: red-footed, masked and brown boobies. I used my GoPro camera on this beautiful day to show their fly-bys.
- published: 15 Apr 2012
- views: 172
- author: SandyCMaui
Hōkūle'a: Nainoa on Palmyra Success
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:53
- Updated: 25 Jun 2011
Polynesian Voyaging Society chairperson Nainoa Thompson speaks about the success of the young crew who sailed the canoe to Palmyra Atoll. Hōkūle'a recently voyageed to Palmyra Atoll, 1000 miles south of Hawai'i. Crewmembers are training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Nainoa_on_Palmyra_Success
Polynesian Voyaging Society chairperson Nainoa Thompson speaks about the success of the young crew who sailed the canoe to Palmyra Atoll. Hōkūle'a recently voyageed to Palmyra Atoll, 1000 miles south of Hawai'i. Crewmembers are training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 28 Jul 2009
- views: 1240
- author: malamahi
Puffer (Arothron hispidis), Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:34
- Updated: 12 Aug 2011
Pufferfish (Arothron hispidis) on the lagoon sand flats of Palmyra Atoll, July 2011.
http://wn.com/Puffer_Arothron_hispidis,_Palmyra_Atoll
Pufferfish (Arothron hispidis) on the lagoon sand flats of Palmyra Atoll, July 2011.
- published: 08 Aug 2011
- views: 111
- author: chelsealwood6
Boat ramp, Palmyra Atoll
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:49
- Updated: 29 Mar 2012
http://wn.com/Boat_ramp,_Palmyra_Atoll
Hōkūle'a: Ocean Paddler 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:43
- Updated: 29 May 2012
Mahalo nui loa to Ocean Paddler TV for their wonderful coverage of Hōkūl'a's trip to Palmyra Atoll. Because of time restraints, we've edited down the episode. To see the whole episode including a story on OC1 paddlers, please visit www.oceanpaddler.tv The Hōkūle'a sailed to Palmyra 1000 miles south of Hawai'i as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
http://wn.com/Hōkūle'a_Ocean_Paddler_1
Mahalo nui loa to Ocean Paddler TV for their wonderful coverage of Hōkūl'a's trip to Palmyra Atoll. Because of time restraints, we've edited down the episode. To see the whole episode including a story on OC1 paddlers, please visit www.oceanpaddler.tv The Hōkūle'a sailed to Palmyra 1000 miles south of Hawai'i as training for the Hōkūle'a Wolrdwide Voyage in which the traditional Hawaiian canoe will circumnavigate the Earth using ancient Polynesian navigation techniques. The crew carry with them the idea that we are all crew members on Canoe Earth and, just as on Hōkūle'a, we need to care for one another an our resources.
- published: 07 May 2009
- views: 2532
- author: malamahi
photo: AP / Emanuel Ekra
01 Jan 2013
INZA BAKAYOKO. Associated Press= ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — A crowd stampeded after leaving a New Year's fireworks show early Tuesday in Ivory Coast's commercial center, killing 61 people — many of them youths — and injuring more than 200, rescue workers said. The death toll was expected to rise, the officials said ... Issa Sako of the fire department rescue team.....(size: 8.1Kb)
photo: WN / Imran Nissar
03 Jan 2013
A gang of men accused of repeatedly raping a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in New Delhi in a deadly crime that repulsed the nation are to appear in court today for the first time. A British tourist join others in a candlelight vigil to mourn the death of a gang rape victim, in Kolkata, India Photo. AP. 3.52AM GMT 03 Jan 2013 ... Police have ordered a bone test to determine his age and whether he can stand trial in an adult court....(size: 11.3Kb)
photo: AP / Ng Han Guan
02 Jan 2013
SEOUL -- In a domestically televised New Year's Day speech, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un said he wanted to "remove confrontation" on this divided peninsula and called on "anti-reunification forces" in South Korea to cease their hostility toward the North. The lengthy address, which laid out the national goals for 2013, marked Mr ... Mr. Kim on Tuesday asked for a detente -- but with prerequisites that the conservative Ms ... ....(size: 3.2Kb)
photo: US Navy / HMC Josh Ives
03 Jan 2013
Washington. Aiming to get cooperation through dialogue, the US said that it is working hard to create an environment within Afghanistan and also in the region to have support for Afghan-Afghan reconciliation ... Responding to questions, Nuland said the US supports an Afghan-led process of reconciliation ... Saying that Pakistan needs to engage with Afghanistan directly, Nuland said the US supports dialogue between the two ... PTI ... First Published....(size: 2.3Kb)
photo: AP / Juan Karita
04 Jan 2013
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has released a public letter urging the United Kingdom to relinquish its control over the disputed Falkland Islands. ... The veterans delivered a letter addressed to the British Ambassador in Argentina, John Freeman, criticising the British government for refusing to discuss the sovereignty of the islands with the Argentine government ... 508 Source.. Al Jazeera and agencies. Share....(size: 19.6Kb)
noodls
03 Jan 2013
(Source. GeorgiaTech - Georgia Institute of Technology) ... The new information will help assess the accuracy of climate model projections for 21st century climate change in the tropical Pacific ... "We show that they actually match fairly well ... In addition to the National Science Foundation, the project received assistance from Norwegian Cruise Lines, the National Geographic WAITT program, and the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium ... CITATION....(size: 8.5Kb)
Richmond Times Dispatch
22 Nov 2012
There are more pocket breweries among these mountains than stoplights. There are far more of both than sailing ships ... But he’s done years of tough outdoor work managing estate farming operations; he worked on isolated Palmyra Atoll in the South Pacific during an austere Nature Conservancy research project there ... “Palmyra Atoll is a deserted place and I could see in John an awareness that safety and caution were of extreme importance ... 10....(size: 24.2Kb)
The Examiner
08 Sep 2012
The USFS is seeking a contractor that can supply all equipment, materials and supplies necessary to remove a grounded 121 foot steel hull, longline fishing vessel and scattered debris from the western terrace reef at Palmyra Atoll NWR, and the remnants of a teak fishing vessel and scattered debris from the Kingman Reef NWR ... The site visit at Palmyra ......(size: 7.3Kb)
Ha'aretz
06 Jun 2012
The extinction of wild animals is destroying nature in ways that scientists never suspected. Studies in recent years show that extinctions trigger chain reactions that degrade ecosystems until their ability to function is threatened. ... These links were discovered during research on Palmyra Atoll in the middle of the Pacific, where scientists looked into the effects of planting palm trees to replace the indigenous vegetation. ... ....(size: 5.9Kb)
PhysOrg
18 May 2012
This past fall, McCauley, a graduate student, and DeSalles, an undergraduate, were in remote Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific tracking manta rays' movements for a predator-prey interaction study ... Meanwhile, graduate student Hillary Young was studying palm tree proliferation's effects on bird communities and native habitats. Aerial shot of Palmyra Atoll, one of the most remote and least-disturbed places on Earth. Credit ... ....(size: 3.8Kb)
The New York Times
17 May 2012
The idea that all life is interdependent is familiar to anyone who has seen “The Lion King,” but this “circle of life” is rarely displayed in such a long chain of connections as it is on Palmyra Atoll ... Red-footed boobies and other seabirds roost and nest in the high trees of the native forest on Palmyra, as they do on other atolls....(size: 9.1Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
16 May 2012
By Emily Lu. Birgus latro is the largest terrestrial arthropod in the world, in some cases having a leg span of over three feet and weighing over nine pounds. It is more commonly known as the coconut crab, due to its diet ... A coconut crab in the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (Image courtesy of public-image-domain.com) ... human predation and habitat disruption ... Coenobitidae), of Sorol Atoll, Yap, with remarks on the status of B ... 72 ... ....(size: 6.9Kb)
CNN
28 Apr 2012
April 28, 2012 -- Updated 1000 GMT (1800 HKT) A new survey of Pacific reef sharks has shown that numbers are dwindling dramatically in areas near islands with human populations. A whitetip reef shark at Palmyra Atoll. Lead author of the study Marc Nadon said ... A blacktip reef shark ... Pacific islands and atolls were undertaken in the study and combined with data on human population, habitat complexity, reef size and satellite records ... ....(size: 4.4Kb)
Otago Daily Times
22 Apr 2012
Palmyra Atoll (about half-way between Hawaii and American Samoa), the Phoenix Island group (near Kiribati) and Henderson Island (near Pitcairn Island) ... Palmyra Atoll is under US sovereignty and its collection of islands sports an abandoned World War 2 airstrip, roads and causeways and other structures ... On Palmyra Atoll, scientists captured ......(size: 13.6Kb)
my SA
28 Feb 2012
All commercial fishing was banned in the areas — which lie around Rose Atoll near American Samoa, the Marianas Trench near Saipan, and remote Pacific islands including Palmyra Atoll — when President George W ... The agency would need to assign someone full-time to develop the rules, but people who could be given the job are focused on existing projects like getting rid of rats at Palmyra Atoll, he said....(size: 2.3Kb)
The New York Times
04 Aug 2011
Amanda Schmidt, an assistant professor of geology at Oberlin College, writes from Sichuan Province, China. She is studying the relative natural hazards of some places where people choose to live. Friday, July 29. I am sitting in the office while it pours rain outside ... August 04. River Sand in Bedrock ... Eleanor Sterling of the American Museum of Natural History surveyed gray-shanked doucs in Vietnam and studied sea turtles at Palmyra Atoll ... ....(size: 10.6Kb)
The New York Times
04 Aug 2011
Amanda Schmidt, an assistant professor of geology at Oberlin College, writes from Sichuan Province, China. She is studying the relative natural hazards of some places where people choose to live. Saturday, July 30 ... We need a few different kinds of samples ... Otherwise we collect charcoal ... Ick ... August 04 ... Eleanor Sterling of the American Museum of Natural History surveyed gray-shanked doucs in Vietnam and studied sea turtles at Palmyra Atoll ... ....(size: 11.9Kb)
The New York Times
03 Aug 2011
Margarita Marinova, a scientist with the NASA Ames Research Center, writes from Kelly Lake in British Columbia, where she is studying microbialite formation. Saturday, July 30. Today I’m the flight director, overseeing the submersible operations, and it’s a relief to see everything go smoothly ... Eleanor Sterling of the American Museum of Natural History surveyed gray-shanked doucs in Vietnam and studied sea turtles at Palmyra Atoll ... ....(size: 12.0Kb)
Palmyra Atoll
Location of the Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
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Palmyra Atoll ( /pælˈmaɪrə/) is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4–20 "non-occupants" are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departments of the US government and The Nature Conservancy,[1] as well as a rotating mix of Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium[2] scholars pursuing research.
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, roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. The atoll is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), and it is located in the equatorial Northern Pacific Ocean. Its 9 mi (14 km) of coastline has one anchorage known as West Lagoon.
The atoll consists of an extensive reef, two shallow lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with vegetation—mostly coconut trees, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.
The islets of the atoll are all connected, except Sand Island and the two Home Islets in the west and Barren Island in the east. The largest island is Cooper Island in the north, followed by Kaula Island in the south. The northern arch of islets is formed by Strawn Island, Cooper Island, Aviation Island, Quail Island, Whippoorwill Island, followed in the east by Eastern Island, Papala Island, and Pelican Island, and in the south by Bird Island, Holei Island, Engineer Island, Tanager Island, Marine Island, Kaula Island, Paradise Island, and Home Island (clockwise). Average annual rainfall is approximately 175 in (4,400 mm) per year. Daytime temperatures average 85 °F (29 °C) year round.
Contents |
Political status[link]
Palmyra is an incorporated territory of the United States (the only such territory in existence since 1959), meaning that it is subject to all provisions of the U.S. Constitution and that is permanently under American sovereignty. However, since Palmyra is also an unorganized territory, there is no Act of Congress specifying how Palmyra should be governed. Palmyra is also uninhabited, as far as permanent residents are concerned.
The only relevant Federal law simply gives the President the authority to administer Palymra as he best sees fit (see Section 48 of the Hawaii Omnibus Act, Pub. L. 86–624, July 12, 1960, 74 Stat. 411, attached as a note to former sections 491 to 636 of Title 48, United States Code[3]).
The issue of the governing of Palmyra is generally a moot point, since there is no permanent population remaining there, nor any reason to think that there will be in the future. Palmyra is the only unorganized incorporated territory of the United States. Cooper Island in this atoll is owned by The Nature Conservancy, and it is managed as a nature reserve. The rest of Palmyra is Federal land and waters under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[4] Since Palmyra has no local government at all, it is administered directly from Washington, D.C., by the Office of Insular Affairs, of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
For all other purposes, Palmyra is counted as one of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands.
There is no current economic activity on Palmyra. Most of the roads and causeways there were built during WW II. All of these are now unserviceable and overgrown with bushes and grass. There is a 2,000-meter-long, unpaved, airstrip on Cooper Island (Palmyra (Cooper) Airport, ICAO code PLPA), that was built for the Navy during WW II.
Palmyra has been occupied, off and on, by a group of scientists, Nature Conservancy members, and volunteers, and representatives of the Fish & Wildlife (up to 20 people in total) for the past decade.[when?]
A construction program in 2004 consisted of several two-person bungalows and showers for the temporary residents. Fresh water is collected from the roof of a concrete building in this area. The communal buildings of the area on the north side of Cooper Island (the only occupied area of the atoll) consist of a common cooking and dining building next to the only sea dock, and there a kayak and scuba diving equipment storage building next to this.
Palmyra Atoll's location in the Pacific Ocean, where the southern and northern currents meet, means that its beaches are littered with trash and debris. Washed-up plastic mooring buoys and plastic bottles are plentiful on the beaches of Palmyra.
History[link]
Palmyra was sighted in 1798 by the American sea captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut while his ship, the Betsy, was sailing to Asia. According to the accounts, Fanning had awoken three times during the night before. On the third time, he took this as a premonition, and he ordered his first mate to heave to. On the next morning the ship resumed its travel, but she only went about a nautical mile before reaching the reef of Palmyra. Had the ship continued on her course at night, the ship might have been wrecked.[5] On November 7, 1802, Captain Sawle and the U.S.S. Palmyra shipwrecked on the reef, which ultimately took the name of this vessel.
In 1859, Palmyra Atoll was claimed for the United States by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd of the brig Josephine, in accordance with the Guano Islands Act of 1856, but there was no guano there to be mined. On February 26, 1862, King Kamehameha IV of the Hawaiian Islands commissioned Captain Zenas Bent and Johnson Beswick Wilkinson, both Hawaiian citizens, to take possession of the atoll, and on April 15, 1862, it was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Hawaii.[6]
Throughout the next century, ownership of the atoll passed through various hands. Bent sold his rights to Palmyra to Wilkinson on December 24, 1862, and the atoll was owned by Kalama Wilkinson (Johnson's widow) through 1885. It was then divided between three heirs, two of whom immediately gave their rights to William Luther Wilcox who, in turn, gave them to the Pacific Navigation Company. In 1897, this company was liquidated, and its interests were sold first to William Ansel Kinney, and then to Fred Wunderburg.[7]
Wilkinson's third heir sold his rights to William Ringer.[8]
Then in 1889, Commander Nichols of the British ship HMS Cormorant claimed Palmyra for the United Kingdom, unaware of the prior claim made by the Kingdom of Hawaii.[9]
In 1898, Palmyra was annexed to the United States along with the overall annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and on June 14, 1900, Palmyra became part of the new Territory of Hawaii.[6] To end all British claims, a second act of annexation by the U.S. Government was made in 1911. This Act of Congress made Palmyra the only "incorporated territory" of the United States at that time.
Since the Panama Canal was about to open up, the Palmyra's location became important. The British Empire had established a submarine cable station for the All Red Line on nearby Fanning Island.[10] Hence the warship USS West Virginia was dispatched to Palmyra, on February 21, 1912, she formally reaffirmed the American claim on Palmyra.[6]
In 1912, Henry Ernest Cooper (1857–1929) acquired William Ringer's property rights to Palmyra and, after a challenge in court, he became the sole owner of the atoll.[8] Cooper visited the island in July 1913 with the scientists Charles Montague Cooke, Jr., and Joseph F. Rock, who wrote up a scientific description of the atoll.[11]
Cooper sold the whole atoll except two minor islets to Leslie and Ellen Fullard-Leo on August 19, 1922 for $15,000. These two people established the Palmyra Copra Company to harvest the coconuts growing on the atoll. Their three sons, including actor Leslie Vincent, continued as the owners afterwards, except for the period of administration by the U.S. Navy during World War II (1940–1945).
Palmyra under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy[link]
In 1934, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra were placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Navy. The Navy took over the atoll for use as the Palmyra Island Naval Air Station on August 15, 1941. From November 1939 through 1947, the atoll had resident Federal Government representatives, the island commanders.
Following World War II, much of the Naval Air Station there was demolished, with some of the materials piled up and burned on the atoll, dumped into the lagoon, or in the case of unexploded ordnance on some of the islets, left in place.[12] After the war, the Fullard-Leo family sued for the return of the ownership of Palmyra Atoll to themselves all the way up to the Supreme Court. The family won its court case in 1947. The Cooper family still owns two of the five islands.[6]
When Hawaii was admitted to the United States in 1959, Palmyra was explicitly separated from the new state as a federal incorporated territory, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior.[6] In 1962, the U.S. Department of Defense used Palmyra as an observation site during several high-altitude nuclear weapons tests high above Johnston Atoll. A group of about ten men supported the observation posts during this series of tests, while about 40 people came for the actual tests to carry out the observations using their technical equipment.
In December 2000, most of Palymyra Atoll was bought by The Nature Conservancy[6] for coral reef conservation and research. In 2003, a scientific study was published about fossilized coral that was washing up on Palmyra. This fossilized coral was examined for evidence of the behavior of the effect of El Niño on the tropical Pacific Ocean over the past 1,000 years.[13]
In November 2005, a team of scientists joined with The Nature Conservancy to open up a new research station on Palmyra to study global warming, the disappearing coral reefs, invasive species, and other environmental concerns.[14]
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, including Palmyra Atoll, was established on January 6, 2009. The Secretary of the Interior has delegated the responsibility for supervising this National Monument to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[15]
National Wildlife Refuge[link]
On January 18, 2001, the Secretary of the Interior signed an order designating Palmyra’s tidal lands, submerged lands, and surrounding waters out to 12 nautical miles (22 km) from the water’s edge as a National Wildlife Refuge. Subsequently, the Department of the Interior published a regulation providing for the management of the refuge. 66 Fed. Reg. 7660-01 (January 24, 2001). The regulation states, in pertinent part, as follows:
"We will close the refuge to commercial fishing but will permit a low level of compatible recreational fishing for bonefishing and deep water sportfishing under programs that we will carefully manage to ensure compatibility with refuge purposes. . . . Management actions will include protection of the refuge waters and wildlife from commercial fishing activities."
In March 2003, The Nature Conservancy conveyed 416 acres (1.68 km2) of the emergent land of Palmyra to the United States to be included in the refuge. It subsequently added 28 more acres to the conveyance.
In January 2007, several parties sued the United States in the Court of Federal Claims alleging that, under the Takings Clause, the Interior Department regulation had “directly confiscated, taken, and rendered wholly and completely worthless” their purported property interests. The United States filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and the court granted the motion.[16] On April 9, 2009, the court's decision was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.[17]
As of July 2009, limited visits to the refuge are allowed, including by private recreational sailboat or motorboat. Visits must have prior approval, with access to Cooper Island arranged through the Nature Conservancy.[18]
[edit] The Sea Wind murders
In 1974, Palmyra was the site of the double murder of a wealthy San Diego couple, Malcolm "Mac" Graham and his wife, Eleanor "Muff" Graham.[19] The mysterious deaths, murder conviction of Duane (“Buck”) Walker (aka Wesley G. Walker) and acquittal of his girlfriend, Stephanie Stearns, made headlines nationwide and led to a best-selling account written by Stearns's defense attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, and Bruce B. Henderson in the true crime book And the Sea Will Tell. The book led to a CBS television miniseries by the same name starring James Brolin, Rachel Ward and Hart Bochner. The story was also depicted in The FBI Files.
Walker and Stearns were arrested in Honolulu in 1974 after returning from Palmyra aboard the Sea Wind, a yacht stolen from the Grahams. Because no bodies were found at the time, Walker and Stearns were convicted only for the yacht theft in August 1975. Six years later, a partially buried corroded chest was found in a lagoon at Palmyra, containing Eleanor Graham's remains. Walker and Stearns were arrested in Arizona for murder. In 1986 Stearns was acquitted but Walker was convicted. He served 22 years in the United States Penitentiary, Victorville, California before receiving parole in 2007. Walker died on April 26, 2010.
See also[link]
Notes[link]
- ^ Sterling, Eleanor (July 28, 2010). "In the Middle of Nowhere, Snooping on Sea Turtles". New York Times. http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/in-the-middle-of-nowhere-snooping-on-sea-turtles/. Retrieved September 28, 2010.
- ^ Unattributed. "PARC Member Institutions". palmyraresearch.org. http://www.palmyraresearch.org/about/parc-member-institutions. Retrieved September 28, 2010.
- ^ Title 48 Chapter 3. US Code Collection. Cornell Law School. URL retrieved February 10, 2007.
- ^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/um.html CIA World Fact Book
- ^ Fate, March 1953, Premonition of Danger, by H.F. Thomas in Connecticut Circle; see also Invisible Horizons, by Vincent H. Gaddis, Ace Books, Inc., 1965.
- ^ a b c d e f "Palmyra Atoll". US Department of the Interior, Office of Insular Affairs. January 30, 2006. http://www.doi.gov/oia/Islandpages/palmyrapage.htm. Retrieved January 6, 2008.
- ^ "Palmyra Island". The Evening Bulletin (Honolulu). August 14, 1897. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016413/1897-08-14/ed-1/seq-5/;words=Palmyra. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ a b "Contest Cooper's Claim to Palmyra". The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu). May 3, 1912. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1912-05-03/ed-1/seq-1/. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ "Has Prior Claim: Palmyra Claimed by Kamehameha". The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu). August 13, 1897. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1897-08-13/ed-1/seq-4/;words=Palmyra. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ "Palmyra Title May Now be Tested: Sale of Fanning Brings the Little Hawaiian-Owned Group into Prominence". The Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu). January 16, 1912. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1912-01-16/ed-1/seq-2/. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ Joseph F. Rock (April 1916). "Palmyra Island with a Description of its Flora". Bulletin Number 4 (College of Hawaii). http://books.google.com/books?id=8jtEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA57.
- ^ Palmyra Atoll: WWII Naval Air Station Contaminant Impacts on Terrestrial and Marine Ecosystems within the USFWS National Wildlife Refuge, Columbia Environmental Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey.
- ^ K. M. Cobb et al., El Niño/Southern Oscillation and Tropic Pacific Climate During the Last Millennium, Nature, Vol. 424, July 17, 2003
- ^ "Opening of The Nature Conservancy Research Station on Palmyra Atoll". Hawai'i Post. http://www.hawaii-post.com/2005-01DEC.html. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ "Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument". fws.gov. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. http://www.fws.gov/pacificremoteislandsmarinemonument/. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
- ^ Palmyra Pac. Seafoods, L.L.C. v. United States, 80 Fed. Cl. 228 (U.S. Court of Federal Claims 2008).
- ^ Palmyra Pacific Seafoods v. U.S., 561 F.3d 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
- ^ "Visiting Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge". fws.gov. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. http://www.fws.gov/palmyraatoll/visit.html. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
- ^ "Palmyra's scads of rats rival its crabs and birds". HonoluluAdvertiser.com. http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/oceanwatch/20100614_Palmyras_scads_of_rats_rival_its_crabs_and_birds.html.
References[link]
- Rowlett, Curt (2006). Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy, Chapter 6, The Curse of Palmyra Island. Lulu Press. ISBN 1-4116-6083-8.
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Palmyra Atoll |
- Palmyra atoll
- Palmyra Island
- Palmyra Atoll NWR
- The Curse of Palmyra Island – article
- The Curse of Palmyra Island – free book
- The Nature Conservancy in Palmyra Atoll
- Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium
- United States v. Fullard-Leo (Supreme Court opinion; includes a history of the island's ownership)
- WorldStatesmen- U.S.
- History of Palmyra Atoll
- The Palmyra Gazette
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Coordinates: 5°53′N 162°5′W / 5.883°N 162.083°W / 5.883; -162.083
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For places named Palmyra after this city, see Palmyra (disambiguation).
| Palmyra ܬܕܡܘܪܬܐ |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
 Palmyra
|
|
| Coordinates: 34°33′36″N 38°16′2″E / 34.56°N 38.26722°E / 34.56; 38.26722 | |
| Country |  Syria |
| Governorate | Homs Governorate |
| District | Palmyra District |
| Elevation | 405 m (1,329 ft) |
| Population (2004 census) | |
| • Total | 51,323 |
| Area code(s) | 31 |
| Official name: Site of Palmyra | |
| Type: | Cultural |
| Criteria: | i, ii, iv |
| Designated: | 1980 (4th session) |
| Reference #: | 23 |
| State Party: | Syria |
| Region: | Arab States |
Palmyra (Aramaic: ܬܕܡܘܪܬܐ;Hebrew: תדמור; tiḏmor, Greek: Παλμύρα, Arabic: تدمر; Tadmur, English pronunciation: /ˌpælˈmaɪrə/) was an ancient city in central Syria. In antiquity, it was an important city located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus[1] and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It had long been a vital caravan stop for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert. The earliest documented reference to the city by its Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur (which means "the town that repels" in Amorite and "the indomitable town" in Aramaic)[2] is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari.[3]
Though the ancient site fell into disuse after the 16th century, it is still known as Tadmor[4] in Arabic (aka Tedmor[5]), and there is a newer town of the same name next to the ruins.[6] The Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale monuments containing funerary art such as limestone slabs with human busts representing the deceased.
Contents |
Culture[link]
Palmyrans bore Aramaic names,[7][8] and worshipped a variety of deities from Mesopotamia (Marduk and Ruda),[9] Syria (Hadad, Baʿal, Astarte),[10] Arabia (Allāt) and Greece (Athena).[11] Palmyrans were originally speakers of Aramaic but later shifted to the Greek language. At the time of the Islamic conquests Palmyra was inhabited by several Arab tribes, primarily the Qada'ah and Kalb.[12]
History[link]
Ancient[link]
The exact etymology of the name "Palmyra" is unknown, although some scholars believe it was related to the palm trees in the area. Others, however, believe it may have come from an incorrect translation of the name "Tadmor" (cf. Colledge, Seyrig, Starcky, and others). The city was first mentioned in the archives of Mari in the second millennium BC. It was a trading city in the extensive trade network that linked Mesopotamia and northern Syria. Tadmor is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Second Book of Chronicles 8:4) as a desert city built (or fortified) by the King Solomon of Judea:
There had been a temple at Palmyra for 2000 years before the Romans ever saw it. Its form, a large stone-walled chamber with columns outside, is much closer to the sort of thing attributed to Solomon than to anything Roman. It is mentioned in the Bible as part of Solomon's Kingdom. In fact, it says he built it.—Terry Jones and Alan Ereira, Terry Jones' Barbarians, p. 183
Flavius Josephus also attributes the founding of Tadmor to Solomon in his Antiquities of the Jews (Book VIII), along with the Greek name of Palmyra, although this may be a confusion with biblical "Tamara". Several citations in the tractates of the Talmud and of the Midrash also refer to the city in the Syrian desert (sometimes interchanging the letters "d" and "t" - "Tatmor" instead of "Tadmor").
Greco-Roman periods[link]
When the Seleucids took control of Syria in 323 BC, the city was left to itself and it became independent, flourishing as a caravan halt in the 1st century BC. In 41 BCE, Mark Antony sent a raiding party to Palmyra, but the Palmyrans had received intelligence of their approach and escaped to the other side of the Euphrates, demonstrating that at that time Palmyra was still a nomadic settlement and its valuables could be removed at short notice.[13]
In the mid 1st century AD, Palmyra, a wealthy and elegant city located along the caravan routes linking Persia with the Mediterranean ports of Roman Syria and Phoenicia, came under Roman control. A period of great prosperity followed.
Jones and Erieira note that Palmyran merchants owned ships in Italian waters and controlled the Indian silk trade. "Palmyra became one of the richest cities of the Near East." "The Palmyrans had really pulled off a great trick, they were the only people who managed to live alongside Rome without being Romanized. They simply pretended to be Romans."
Palmyra was made part of the Roman province of Syria during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 AD). It steadily grew in importance as a trade route linking Persia, India, China, and the Roman Empire. In 129, Hadrian visited the city and was so enthralled by it that he proclaimed it a free city and renamed it Palmyra Hadriana.
Beginning in 212, Palmyra's trade diminished as the Sassanids occupied the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Septimius Odaenathus, a Prince of Palmyra, was appointed by Valerian as the governor of the province of Syria. After Valerian was captured by the Sassanids and died in captivity in Bishapur, Odaenathus campaigned as far as Ctesiphon (near modern-day Baghdad) for revenge, invading the city twice. When Odaenathus was assassinated by his nephew Maconius, his wife Septimia Zenobia took power, ruling Palmyra on the behalf of her son, Vabalathus.
Zenobia rebelled against Roman authority with the help of Cassius Longinus and took over Bosra and lands as far to the west as Egypt, establishing the short-lived Palmyrene Empire. Next, she took Antioch and large sections of Asia Minor to the north. In 272, the Roman Emperor Aurelian finally restored Roman control and Palmyra was besieged and sacked, never to recover her former glory. Aurelian captured Zenobia, bringing her back to Rome. He paraded her in golden chains in the presence of the senator Marcellus Petrus Nutenus, but allowed her to retire to a villa in Tibur, where she took an active part in society for years. A legionary fortress was established in Palmyra and although no longer an important trade center, it nevertheless remained an important junction of Roman roads in the Syrian desert.[14]
Diocletian expanded the city to harbor even more legions and walled it in to try and save it from the Sassanid threat. The Byzantine period following the Roman Empire only resulted in the building of a few churches; much of the city went to ruin.
Islamic rule[link]
The city was captured by Muslim Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid in 634 but left intact. After the year 800 and the civil wars that followed the fall of the Umayyad caliphs, people started abandoning the city. At the time of the Crusades, Palmyra was under the Burid emirs of Damascus, then under Toghtekin, Mohammed the son of Shirkuh, and finally under the emirs of Homs. In 1132 the Burids had the Temple of Ba'al turned into a fortress. In the 13th century the city was handed over to the Mamluk sultan Baybars. In 1401, it was sacked by Timur, but recovered quickly, so that in the 15th century it was described as boasting "vast gardens, flourishing trades and bizarre monuments" by Ibn Fadlallah al-Omari.
In the 16th century, Qala'at ibn Maan castle was built on top of a mountain overlooking the oasis by Fakhr ad-Din al-Maan II, a Lebanese prince who tried to control the Syrian Desert. The castle was surrounded by a moat, with access only available through a drawbridge. It is possible that earlier fortifications existed on the hill well before then.
The city declined under Ottoman rule, reduced to no more than an oasis village with a small garrison. In the 17th century its location was rediscovered by Western travellers, and was studied by European and American archaeologists starting in the 19th century. The villagers who had settled in the Temple of Ba'al were dislodged in 1929 by the French authority.
Main sights[link]
City remains[link]
The most striking building in Palmyra is the huge temple of Ba'al, considered "the most important religious building of the first century AD in the Middle East".[15] It originated as a Hellenistic temple, of which only fragments of stones survive. The central shrine (cella) was added in the early 1st century AD, followed by a large double colonnaded portico in Corinthian style. The west portico and the entrance (propylaeum) date from the 2nd century. The temple measures 205 x 210 m.
Starting from the temple, a colonnaded street, corresponding to the ancient decumanus, leads to the rest of the ancient city. It has a monumental arch (dating to the reign of Septimius Severus, early 3rd century AD) with rich decorations. Next were a temple of Nabu, of which little remains today apart from the podium, and the so-called baths of Diocletian.
The second most noteworthy remain in Palmyra is the theater, today with nine rows of seats, but most likely originally having up to twelve with the addition of wooden structures.[16] It has been dated to the early 1st century AD. Behind the theater were located a small Senate building, where the local nobility discussed laws and made political decisions, and the so-called "Tariff Court", with an inscription suggesting that it was a place for caravans to make payments. Nearby is the large agora (measuring 48 x 71 m), with remains of a banquet room (triclinium); the agora's entrance was decorated with statues of Septimius Severus and his family.
The first section of the excavations ends with a largely restored tetrapylon ("four columns"), a platform with four sets of four columns (only one of the originals in Egyptian granite is still visible). A transverse street leads to Diocletian's Camp, built by the Governor of Syria, Sosianus Hierocles,[17] with the remains of the large central principia (hall housing the legions' standards). Nearby are the temple of the Syrian goddess Allāt (2nd century AD), the Damascus Gate and the Temple of Ba'al-Shamin, erected in AD 17 and later expanded under the reign of Odenathus. Remains include a notable portico leading to the cella.
Funerary art[link]
Outside the ancient walls, the Palmyrenes constructed a series of large-scale funerary monuments which now form the so-called Valley of the Tombs, a 1 km long necropolis, with a series of large, richly decorated structures. These tombs, some of which were below ground, had interior walls that were cut away or constructed to form burial compartments in which the deceased, extended at full length, were placed. Limestone slabs with human busts in high relief sealed the rectangular openings of the compartments.
These reliefs represented the "personality" or "soul" of the person interred and formed part of the wall decoration inside the tomb chamber. A banquet scene depicted on this relief suggests a family tomb rather than that of an individual.
Further excavations[link]
Archaeological teams from various countries have worked on-and-off on different parts of the site. In May 2005, a Polish team excavating at the Lat temple discovered a highly-detailed stone statue of the winged goddess of victory, they also used rock to paint, they also used humans.
Recently, archaeologists in working in central Syria have unearthed the remnants of a 1,200-year-old church believed to be the largest ever discovered in Syria, at an excavation site in the ancient town of Palmyra. This church is the fourth to be discovered in Palmyra. Officials described it as the biggest of its kind to be found so far — its base measuring an impressive 47 meters by 27 meters. The church columns were estimated to be 6 meters tall, with the height of the wooden ceiling more than 15 meters. A small amphitheater was found in the church's courtyard where the experts believe some Christian rituals were practiced.[18] In November 2010 Austrian media manager Helmut Thoma admitted to looting a Palmyrian grave, where he has stolen architectural pieces, today presented in his private living room.[19] German and Austrian archaeologists protested against this crime.[20][21]
Climate[link]
| Climate data for Palmyra | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 12.1 (53.8) |
14.7 (58.5) |
19.4 (66.9) |
25.2 (77.4) |
30.7 (87.3) |
35.4 (95.7) |
38.1 (100.6) |
37.9 (100.2) |
34.4 (93.9) |
28.3 (82.9) |
19.9 (67.8) |
13.5 (56.3) |
25.80 (78.44) |
| Average low °C (°F) | 2.5 (36.5) |
3.8 (38.8) |
6.9 (44.4) |
11.5 (52.7) |
15.9 (60.6) |
19.8 (67.6) |
21.5 (70.7) |
21.6 (70.9) |
19.1 (66.4) |
14.3 (57.7) |
7.7 (45.9) |
3.5 (38.3) |
12.34 (54.22) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 20.8 (0.819) |
18.4 (0.724) |
21.2 (0.835) |
18.3 (0.72) |
8.2 (0.323) |
0.4 (0.016) |
0 (0) |
0 (0) |
0.3 (0.012) |
8.8 (0.346) |
16.1 (0.634) |
20.2 (0.795) |
132.7 (5.224) |
| Avg. precipitation days | 7 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 44 |
| Source: World Meteorological Organization | |||||||||||||
See also[link]
File:Palmyra tower-tomb.JPG
Tower tomb at Palmyra
Notes[link]
- ^ Syria uncovers 'largest church' BBC News Online, 14 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- ^ Palmyra (Syria) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- ^ Syria Gate - About Syria - Palmyra Retrieved 2008-11-16.
- ^ "Tadmor: Syria". Geographical Names. http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-3509357&fid=6011&c=syria. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ "Tedmor: Syria (ancient site)". Geographical Names. http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-3510295&fid=6015&c=syria. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ "Tedmor: Syria (populated place)". Geographical Names. http://www.geographic.org/geographic_names/name.php?uni=-3510296&fid=6003&c=syria. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
- ^ Hillers & Cussini, Delbert & Eleonora (2005). A journey to Palmyra: collected essays to remember Delbert R. Hillers. Brill. pp. 195–196. ISBN 978-90-04-12418-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA195.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition, v.20, p.654
- ^ Teixidor, Javier (1979). The pantheon of Palmyra. Brill Archive. p. 34. ISBN 978-90-04-05987-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=TccUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA34.
- ^ Teixidor, Javier (1979). The pantheon of Palmyra. Brill Archive. p. 59. ISBN 978-90-04-05987-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=TccUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA59.
- ^ Teixidor, Javier (1979). The pantheon of Palmyra. Brill Archive. p. 62. ISBN 978-90-04-05987-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=TccUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA62.
- ^ Shahîd, Irfan. Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume 2, Part 2. p. 256.
- ^ Isaac (2000), pp. 141-142
- ^ Isaac (2000), p. 165
- ^ Ross (1999), p. 165
- ^ Ross (1999), p. 169
- ^ Ross (1999), p. 171
- ^ "1,200-year-old church uncovered in Syria". The Associated Press. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jAzBSBOFJhi4iTgpaNylsy6RhH9QD94E2QE80. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
- ^ http://www.archnews.co.uk/world-archaeology/european-archaeology/4148-austrian-german-media-manager-plundered-unesco-world-heritage.html Article on Helmut Thoma's looting of Palmyrian grave
- ^ Epoc - Interview with Austrian archaeologist working in Palmyra on the occasion of Helmut Thoma's looting
- ^ swr - "Grabraub ist kein Kavaliersdelikt". a comment on Helmut Thoma's looting
Bibliography[link]
- Burns, Ross (1999). Monuments of Syria. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. pp. 162–175.
- Isaac, Benjamin (2000). The Limits of Empire - the Roman Army in the East (revised ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Palmyra |
- Christian Sahner, "The Temple of the Bride of the Desert," The Wall Street Journal, 27 August 2011 [1]
- Metropolitan Museum of Art - Palmyra
- Temple of Baal, Palmyra, Syria
- Palmyra. Italian-Syrian Archaeological Mission of the University of Milan
- http://i-cias.com/e.o/palmyra.htm
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Coordinates: 34°33′36″N 38°16′2″E / 34.56°N 38.26722°E / 34.56; 38.26722
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Wiki Summary
Palmyra Atoll ( /pælˈmaɪrə/) is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4–20 "non-occupants" are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departments of the US government and The Nature Conservancy, as well as a rotating mix of Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium scholars pursuing research.
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, roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. The atoll is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), and it is located in the equatorial Northern Pacific Ocean. Its 9 mi (14 km) of coastline has one anchorage known as West Lagoon.
The atoll consists of an extensive reef, two shallow lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with vegetation—mostly coconut trees, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.
