In the law of the United States, an insular area is a U.S.-associated jurisdiction that is not part of a U.S. state or the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.). This includes fourteen U.S. territories administered under U.S. sovereignty, as well as three sovereign states each with a Compact of Free Association with the United States. The term also may be used to refer to the previous status of the Swan Islands, Hawaii, and the Philippines, as well as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands when it existed. Three of the U.S. territories are in the Caribbean Sea, eleven are in the Pacific Ocean, and all three freely associated states are also in the Pacific. Two additional Caribbean territories are disputed and administered by Colombia. Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants to the United States Congress the responsibility of overseeing the territories. A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions known as the Insular Cases created a distinction between "incorporated territories", where the full Constitution of the United States applies, and "unincorporated territories", where only basic protections apply. The only current incorporated territory, Palmyra Atoll, is uninhabited. A U.S. territory is considered "organized" when the U.S. Congress passes an organic act for it. Three of the U.S. territories with a permanent non-military population have constitutions, and all five have locally elected territorial legislatures and executives, and some degree of political autonomy. Four of the five are "organized", but American Samoa is technically "unorganized" and subject to the direct jurisdiction of the Office of Insular Affairs.
History The first insular areas that the United States occupied were Baker Island, Howland Island, and Navassa Island (1857). Then Johnston Atoll and Jarvis Island (both in 1858) would be claimed. After the Spanish–American War in 1898, several territories were taken that are still under U.S. sovereignty (Puerto Rico and Guam, both in 1898). Palmyra Atoll was annexed along with the Republic of Hawaii (formerly a Kingdom) that same year. American Samoa was reclaimed the following year (1899). In 1917, at the height of World War I, Denmark sold the Danish Virgin Islands to the United States. The U.S. Navy annexed Kingman Reef in 1922. Spain had sold the Northern Mariana Islands to Germany in 1899. The islands passed to Japan, which in turn lost them to the United States in 1945 after the end of World War II. The Marshall Islands became self-governing in 1979 and fully independent along with the Federated States of Micronesia in 1986. Palau achieved independence in 1994. The three countries maintain sovereignty with free association status with the United States, which provides them with defense assistance and economic resources.
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