Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Phoenix Islands
Summary
The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Republic of Kiribati. Their combined land area is . The only island of any commercial importance is Canton Island (also called Abariringa). The other islands are Enderbury, Rawaki (formerly Phoenix), Manra (formerly Sydney), Birnie, McKean, Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner), and Orona (formerly Hull).
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, established in 2008, is one of the World's largest protected areas, and is home to about 120 species of coral and more than 500 species of fish. All of the Phoenix Islands are uninhabited, except for a few families who live on Canton Island.
At various times in history, the Phoenix Islands have been considered part of the Gilberts Island group (which itself was sometimes known as the Kingsmill island group).
Geographically, Baker Island and Howland Island, two unincorporated territories of the United States that lie to the north of the Phoenix Islands, could be considered part of the same island group as the Phoenix Islands. However, politically, and for statistical compilation purposes, Howland and Baker are considered part of the group known as the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
At one time, the United States laid claim to all the Phoenix Islands under the 1856 Guano Islands Act. However, when Kiribati became an independent republic in 1979, the United States and Kiribati signed the Treaty of Tarawa, under which the United States released all claims to the Phoenix Islands (except for Baker and Howland), which thenceforth became recognized as part of Kiribati.
The Phoenix Islands began to be known by that name sometime around the 1840s, as a generalization from one of the islands in the group, which had been named Phoenix Island earlier in the century (probably because Phoenix was a common name for the whaling ships that frequented the nearby waters at the time).
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.