Midway Island

Overview
Midway Island is small, sandy Pacific Island that is a an unorganized (run by an pointed governor not an elected council), unincorporated territory (not officially part of the USA proper). It was discovered by # in #, but native Hawaiian fisherman had been visiting the island for centuries before them.

Name
As its name suggests, Midway is roughly equidistant between North America and Asia, and lies almost halfway around the world longitudinally from Greenwich, UK. It is near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Tokyo, Japan.

Midway Atoll is less than 140 nautical miles (259 km; 161 mi) east of the International Date Line, about 2,800 nautical miles (5,200 km; 3,200 mi) west of San Francisco, and 2,200 nautical miles (4,100 km; 2,500 mi) east of Tokyo.

History
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Pre-WW2
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WW2
The Battle of Midway occurred on 4–7 June 1942.

Cold War
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Post-Cold War
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Nature reserve
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Air strip and former military base
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Population
About 40 to 60 people live on the atoll, which includes staff of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and related contract workers. It has no fixed population since the last 4 islanders left in 2000.

Also see

 * 1) Wake Atoll
 * 2) Johnston Atoll
 * 3) Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands