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Minor Outlying Islands

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The United States Minor Outlying Islands are small islands, atolls and reefs. Palmyra Atoll, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll and Wake Island are in the Pacific Ocean, and Navassa Island is in the Caribbean Sea. The additional disputed territories of Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank are also located in the Caribbean Sea. Palmyra Atoll (formally known as the United States Territory of Palmyra Island) is the only incorporated territory, a status it has maintained since Hawaii became a state in 1959. The status of several territories is disputed. Navassa Island is disputed by Haiti, Wake Island is disputed by the Marshall Islands, Swains Island (a part of American Samoa) is disputed by Tokelau, and Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank (both administered by Colombia) are disputed by Colombia, Jamaica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They are uninhabited except for Midway Atoll, whose approximately 40 inhabitants are employees of the U.S...
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Incorporated and unincorporated territories

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Congress decides whether a territory is incorporated or unincorporated. The U.S. Constitution applies to each incorporated territory (including its local government and inhabitants) as it applies to the local governments and residents of a state. Incorporated territories are considered to be integral parts of the U.S., rather than possessions. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 1901–1905 Insular Cases, ruled that the constitution extended to U.S. territories. The court also established the doctrine of territorial incorporation, in which the constitution applies fully to incorporated territories (such as the territories of Alaska and Hawaii) and partially in the unincorporated territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and, at the time, the Philippines (which is no longer a U.S. territory). In the 1901 Supreme Court case Downes v. Bidwell , the court said that the U.S. Constitution did not fully apply in unincorporated territories because they were inhabited by "alien races". The U.S. had n...
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Legal status of territories

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The U.S. has had territories since its beginning. In the chapter of US federal law on immigration and nationality, the term "United States" (used in a geographical sense) is defined, unless otherwise specified, as "the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands of the United States, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands". A 2007 executive order on environmental, energy, and transportation management defined American Samoa as part of the US "in a geographical sense". Organized territories are lands under federal sovereignty (but not part of any state) which were given a measure of self-governance by Congress through an organic act subject to the Congress's plenary powers under the territorial clause of the Constitution's Article Four, section 3.
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