Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Line Islands




The Line 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. The time of day is the same as in Hawaiʻi, but the date is one day ahead. The time is 25 hours ahead of some other islands in Oceania, like those Line Islands that belong to the US, which have UTC-11.


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.