Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; Hawaiian: Kuaihelani, lit. 'the backbone of heaven'; Pihemanu, 'the loud din of birds') is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States, and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory of the U.S. Midway Atoll consists of three islands. The largest island is Sand Island, which is inhabited and has an airstrip. Immediately east of Sand Island, across the narrow Brooks Channel, is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is a third island, Spit Island, a narrow reef. Roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, the islands of the Midway Atoll are the only three islands in the Hawaiian Islands not part of the state of Hawaii. Unlike the other Hawaiian islands, Midway observes Samoa Time (UTC−11:00, i.e., eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time), which is one hour behind the time in the Hawaii–Aleutian Time Zone used in Hawaii. For statistical purposes, Midway is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, encompassing 590,991.50 acres (239,165.77 ha) of land and water in the surrounding area, is administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The refuge and surrounding area are part of the larger Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. From 1941 until 1993, the atoll was the home of Naval Air Facility Midway Island, which played a crucial role in the Battle of Midway, June 4–6, 1942. Aircraft based at the then-named Henderson Field on Eastern Island joined with United States Navy ships and planes in an attack on a Japanese battle group that sank four carriers and one heavy cruiser and defended the atoll from invasion. The battle was a critical Allied victory and a significant turning point of the Pacific campaign of World War II. About 50 people live on Sand Island: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff and contract workers. Visiting the atoll is possible only for business reasons, which includes permanent and temporary staff, contractors, and volunteers, as the tourism program has been suspended due to budget cutbacks. In 2012, the last year that the visitor program was in operation, 332 people made the trip to Midway. Tours focused on the unique ecology of Midway and its military history. The economy is derived solely from governmental sources. Nearly all supplies must be brought to the island by ship or plane, although a hydroponic greenhouse and garden supply some fresh fruits and vegetables.
Location As its name suggests, Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia and lies almost halfway around the world longitudinally from Greenwich, England. It is near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, 1,310 miles (2,110 km) northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, and about one-third of the way from Honolulu to Tokyo, Japan. Unlike the rest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway is not part of the State of Hawaii due to the Hawaiian Organic Act of 1900 that formally annexed Hawaii to the United States as a territory, which defined Hawaii as "the islands acquired by the United States of America under an Act of Congress entitled 'Joint resolution to provide for annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United States,'" referring to the Newlands Resolution of 1898. While it could be argued that Midway became part of Hawaii when Captain N.C. Brooks of the sealing ship Gambia sighted it in 1859, it was assumed at the time that Midway was independently acquired by the United States when Captain William Reynolds of USS Lackawanna visited in 1867, and thus not part of the Hawaii Territory. In defining which islands the state of Hawaii would inherit from the Territory, the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959 clarified the question, specifically excluding Midway (along with Palmyra Island, Johnston Island, and Kingman Reef) from the jurisdiction of the state. Midway Atoll is approximately 140 nmi (260 km; 160 mi) east of the International Date Line, about 2,800 nmi (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) west of San Francisco, and 2,200 nmi (4,100 km; 2,500 mi) east of Tokyo.
Geography and geology
Midway Atoll is part of a chain of volcanic islands, atolls, and seamounts extending from near the Island of Hawaii up to the area of the Aleutian Islands and known as the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, between Pearl and Hermes Atoll and Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It consists of a ring-shaped barrier reef nearly 5 mi (8.0 km) in diameter and several sand islets. The two significant pieces of land, Sand Island and Eastern Island, provide a habitat for millions of seabirds. The island sizes are shown in the table above. Midway was formed roughly 28 million years ago when the seabed underneath it was over the same hotspot from which the Island of Hawaii is now being formed. Midway was once a shield volcano, perhaps as large as the island of Lanai. As the volcano piled up, lava flows built the island, its weight depressed the crust, and the island slowly subsided for millions of years, a process known as isostatic adjustment. As the island subsided, a coral reef around the former volcanic island could maintain itself near sea level by growing upwards. That reef is now over 516 ft (157 m) thick (in the lagoon, 1,261 ft (384 m), composed mostly of post-Miocene limestones with a layer of upper Miocene (Tertiary g) sediments and lower Miocene (Tertiary e) limestones at the bottom overlying the basalts). What remains today is a shallow water atoll about 6 mi (9.7 km) across. Following Kure Atoll, Midway is the 2nd most northerly atoll in the world.
Infrastructure The atoll has some 20 mi (32 km) of roads, 4.8 mi (7.7 km) of pipelines, one port on Sand Island (World Port Index Nr. 56328, MIDWAY ISLAND), and an airfield. As of 2004, Henderson Field airfield at Midway Atoll, with its one active runway (rwy 06/24, around 8,000 ft (2,400 m) long) has been designated as an emergency diversion airport for aircraft flying under ETOPS rules. Although the FWS closed all airport operations on November 22, 2004, public access to the island was restored in March 2008. Eastern Island Airstrip is a disused airfield used by U.S. forces during the Battle of Midway. It is mostly constructed of Marston Mat and was built by the United States Navy Seabees.
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