Howland Island

The Island That Has Everything Except People

Howland Island is a flat, narrow coral island sitting just north of the equator in the central Pacific, administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a National Wildlife Refuge. It has no permanent residents, no harbour, no airstrip, no fresh water and no accommodation of any kind. The island has been uninhabited since World War II, when its small settlement was destroyed during a Japanese air raid in 1941 and never rebuilt. Amelia Earhart was heading for Howland Island when she disappeared in 1937, which remains its most famous connection to the outside world.

A Refuge in the Fullest Sense

Without human disturbance for decades, Howland Island supports significant seabird populations including frigatebirds, boobies, shearwaters and terns. The surrounding reef is largely intact and the waters are exceptionally clear. A lighthouse beacon named Earhart Light was erected in her memory and still operates, making it one of the more poignant pieces of navigation infrastructure in the Pacific. Access requires a special-use permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, granted only for scientific or educational purposes.

Self-Sufficiency Is Not Optional

Permitted visitors must arrive entirely self-contained by private vessel. There is no resupply, no communications infrastructure, no medical support and no possibility of calling for assistance through any island facility. The nearest inhabited land is more than a thousand kilometres away. This is not a warning so much as a description of the logistics. Howland Island is a wilderness area and is managed as one, which means human convenience is not a factor in its administration.

One of the Last Places on the Calendar

Like its neighbour Baker Island, Howland observes UTC-12, placing it among the last places on earth to begin each new day. It is part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands, a grouping of remote Pacific and Caribbean territories that are sovereign US soil but support no civilian population. For most travellers, Howland Island is a name encountered in the context of aviation history rather than a place that appears in any realistic itinerary.