Howland Island ( /ˈhaʊlənd/) is an uninhabited coral island located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, about 1,700 nautical miles (3,100 km) southwest of Honolulu. The island lies almost halfway between Hawaii and Australia and is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States. Geographically, it is part of the Phoenix Islands. For statistical purposes, Howland is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands.

Howland is located at 0°48′24″N 176°36′59″W / 0.80667°N 176.61639°W / 0.80667; -176.61639Coordinates: 0°48′24″N 176°36′59″W / 0.80667°N 176.61639°W / 0.80667; -176.61639. It covers 450 acres (1.8 km²), with 4 miles (6.4 km) of coastline. The island has an elongated shape on a north-south axis. There is no lagoon.

Howland Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of the 455 acres (1.84 km²) island and the surrounding 32,074 acres (129.80 km²) of submerged land. The island is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an insular area under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.

Dylan Mattingly, born March 18, 1991 in Oakland, California is an American composer, conductor, cellist, pianist, bassist, guitarist, and singer from Berkeley, California. His music draws from a diverse range of styles and musicians, and he himself says that he "is influenced alike by John Coolidge Adams, Olivier Messiaen, Magnus Lindberg, Joni Mitchell, and the old American blues and folk field recordings of the Lomaxes." Mattingly was the co-director of Formerly Known as Classical for two years—a youth-run new music organization which played only music written within their lifetimes, and is currently the co-director of Contemporaneous, a youth-run new music ensemble based in the Hudson Valley of New York.

On September 24, 2011, Contemporaneous presented the world premiere of Mattingly's Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island, a forty-minute work for chamber orchestra inspired by Amelia Earhart's final journey, and about which he writes "Atlas of Somewhere on the Way to Howland Island is for all those voyagers between horizons; for those—past and present—who have flown into storms, for those floating dreamscapes out beyond the curvature of the sunrise, for those that reach escape velocity, for when even your endless arms can’t rearrange the constellations."

Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑrt/ AIR-hart; July 24, 1897 – disappeared 1937) was a noted American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many other records, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. Earhart joined the faculty of the Purdue University aviation department in 1935 as a visiting faculty member to counsel women on careers and help inspire others with her love for aviation. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937 in a Purdue-funded Lockheed Model 10 Electra, Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Fascination with her life, career and disappearance continues to this day.