TheInternational Date Line passes through the Line Islands. The ones that are parts of Kiribati are in the world's farthest forwardtime zone,UTC+14:00. The time of day in these atolls is 24 hours ahead of the state ofHawaii in the United States, which usesUTC−10:00, and 26 hours ahead of some other islands inOceania, such asBaker Island, which usesUTC−12:00.
Copra andpet fish are the islands' main export products (along with seaweed).
Map
Archaeologists have identified the remains of coralMarae platforms and/or village complexes on several of the islands,[3] including the Kiritimati and Tabuaeran atolls, Teraina Island, Malden, Millennium Atoll and Flint Island. These remains are dateable as far back as the 14th century, and show that the inhabitants of the Line Islands were likely permanent or at least semi-permanent.[4]
Most 18th-century visitors to these isles overlooked these telltale signs of former Polynesian settlement. This included Captain Cook, who landed on Christmas Island (now called Kiritimati) in 1777, as well as Captain Fanning, who visited Teraina (Washington Island) and Tabuaeran (Fanning Atoll) in 1798.
In the 19th century,whaling ships were regular visitors to the islands. They came in search of water, wood and provisions. The first whaler recorded to have visited one of them was theCoquette, which docked atKiritimati (then called Christmas Island) in 1822.[5]
In 1888, the United Kingdom was planning to lay thePacific cable, and annexed the islands with a view to using Tabuaeran (then Fanning Island) as one of the relay stations for the cable. The cable was laid and was operational between 1902 and 1963 (except for a short period in 1914).
In 1916, the British annexed Fanning and Washington islands, making them part of the British colony of theGilbert and Ellice Islands.[6] In 1919, they annexed Christmas Island to the same colony.[7] The Line Islands occasionally featured briefly in the biennial reports furnished by the Colony's resident commissioner to the Colonial Office and Parliament in London (see, for example, the reports submitted in 1966 and 1967[8]).
The United States contested the British annexations, based on the U.S.Guano Islands Act of 1856, which allowed for very wide-ranging territorial claims. It relinquished these claims only in 1979, when it entered into theTreaty of Tarawa, which recognised Kiribati's sovereignty over the majority of the Line Islands chain.
Geographically, the Line Islands is divided into three subgroups: the Northern, Central, and Southern Line Islands (however, the Central Line Islands are sometimes grouped with the Southern Line Islands). The table below lists the islands from north to south.
*The lagoon areas marked with an asterisk are included in the land areas of the previous column because, unlike typical lagoons in atolls, they are inland waters completely sealed off from the sea.
Following a 1995 time zone realignment, Millennium Island, then Caroline Island (red dot at far east of map), became the easternmost land west of the International Date Line.
On 23 December 1994, the Republic of Kiribati announced a change oftime zone for the Line Islands, to take effect from 31 December 1994. This adjustment effectively moved theInternational Date Line more than 1,000 km (620 mi) to the east within Kiribati, which placed all of Kiribati on the Asian or western side of the date line, despite the fact that Millennium Island's longitude of 150 degrees west corresponds toUTC−10:00 rather than to its official time zone ofUTC+14:00. Millennium Island is now at the same time as the Hawaiian Islands (Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone), but one day ahead.[15] This move made Millennium Island (then Caroline Island) the easternmost land in the earliest time zone (by some definitions, theeasternmost point on Earth), and one of the first points of land which saw sunrise on 1 January 2000 – at 5:43 am, as measured by local time.
The move was the fulfilment of a campaign promise by Kiribati PresidentTeburoro Tito. Previously, the country straddled the Date Line, thus being constantly in two different days. Kiribati officials later capitalised on the nation's new status as owners of the first land to see sunrise in 2000.[16] Other Pacific nations, includingTonga and New Zealand'sChatham Islands, protested the move, objecting that it interfered with their own claims to be the first land to see dawn in the year 2000.[17]
In 1999, to further capitalise upon the massive public interest in celebrations markingthe arrival of the year 2000, Caroline Island was officially renamed Millennium Island. Although the island is uninhabited, a special celebration was held there to mark the occasion. It featured performances by native Kiribati entertainers and was attended by Kiribati's President Tito.[18] Over 70 Kiribati singers and dancers travelled to Millennium Island from the capital,South Tarawa,[19] accompanied by approximately 25 journalists. The celebration, which was broadcast worldwide by satellite, had an estimated audience size of as many as one billion viewers.[18]
^Robert Langdon (ed.)Where the whalers went: an index to the Pacific ports and islands by American whalers (and some other ships) in the 19th century, Canberra, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, 1984, p. 149ISBN0-86784-471-X.
^Order in Council Annexing the Ocean, Fanning, and Washington islands to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, 1916.
^Order in Council under the Colonial Boundaries Act, 1895, Annexing Christmas Island to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, 1919.
^Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. (1969). Report for the Years 1966 and 1967. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
^"22. Teeraina"(PDF).Office of Te Beretitent – Republic of Kiribati Island Report Series. 2012.Archived(PDF) from the original on 29 May 2017. Retrieved28 April 2015.
^"21. Tabuaeran"(PDF).Office of Te Beretitent – Republic of Kiribati Island Report Series. 2012.Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved28 April 2015.
^"20. Kiritimati"(PDF).Office of Te Beretitent – Republic of Kiribati Island Report Series. 2012.Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved28 April 2015.
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