Insular possessions - Definition and Overview

An insular area of the United States is a jurisdiction that is neither a part of one of the fifty states nor a part of the District of Columbia, the nation's federal district.

Insular area is the current generic term used by the U.S. State Department to refer to any commonwealth, freely associated state, possession or territory. In other contexts, U.S. insular areas may be described as dependencies, protectorates or dependent areas. (Dependent areas need not be under the formal jurisdiction of the United States.)

Residents of insular areas are U.S. citizens, although they do not pay American federal taxes and cannot participate in U.S. presidential elections nor elect voting members of the U.S. Congress.

List and status of insular areas

Several islands in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea are considered insular areas of the United States:

Inhabited

• American Samoa (unincorporated, officially unorganized, although self-governing under authority of the U.S. Department of the Interior)
• Guam (unincorporated, organized under Organic Act of 1950)
• Northern Mariana Islands (unincorporated, commonwealth, organized under 1977 Covenant)
• Puerto Rico (unincorporated, commonwealth, organized under terms of Puerto Rico-Federal Relations Act)
• U.S. Virgin Islands (unincorporated, organized under Revised Organic Act of 1954)

Uninhabited

Except for Navassa Island and Wake Island, all of the following are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

• Baker Island (unincorporated)
• Howland Island (unincorporated)
• Jarvis Island (unincorporated)
• Johnston Atoll (unincorporated)
• Kingman Reef (unincorporated)
• Midway Islands (unincorporated; administered as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge)
• Navassa Island (unincorporated)
• Palmyra Atoll (incorporated, owned by the Nature Conservancy but administered by the Office of Insular Affairs)
• Wake Island (unincorporated)

Disputed

• Serranilla Bank
• Bajo Nuevo Bank

See also

• Compact of Free Association
• Freely associated states
• Guano Islands Act
• Guantanamo Bay
• Incorporated territory
• Insular Cases
• Organized territory
• Political divisions of the United States
• United States Minor Outlying Islands

External links

• Department of the Interior Definitions of Insular Area Political Types (http://www.doi.gov/oia/Islandpages/political_types.htm)
• Rubin, Richard, "The Lost Islands" (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/02/rubin.htm), The Atlantic Monthly, February 2001

Political divisions of the United States

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