Indivision - Countries of The World

General Information - United States Minor Outlying Islands

The United States Minor Outlying Islands, a statistical designation defined by the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 3166-1 code, consists of nine United States insular areas. Palmyra Atoll is the only incorporated territory. As of 2008, none of the islands has any permanent residents. The only human population consists of temporarily stationed scientific and military personnel. The 2000 census counted 315 people on Johnston Atoll and 1 person on Wake Island. There has been no modern indigenous population, except at the 1940 census. The Baker, Howland and Jarvis Colonization Scheme attempted to settle Americans on those three islands beginning in 1935, but all three islands were evacuated in 1942 as a result of World War II. The islands are grouped together as a statistical convenience. They are not administered collectively, nor do they share a single cultural or political history beyond being uninhabited islands under the sovereignty of the United States. They are collectively represented by the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code UM. The individual islands have ISO 3166-2 numerical codes, see ISO 3166-2:UM. The Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) ".um" has historically been assigned to the islands; however, the .um ccTLD was retired in January 2007. The term "United States Minor Outlying Islands" was introduced in 1986. From 1974 until 1986, five of the islands (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef) were grouped under the term United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands, with ISO 3166 code PU (the code of Midway Atoll was MI, the code of Johnston Atoll was JT, and the code of Wake Island was WK).