Of the Hawaiian Island archipelago chain...?

Question

Which are owned by the USA, which are not?

Which fall within the jurisdiction of Hawaii State?

When we see maps of Hawaii, we are typically only shown maps of Hawaii State... From Hawai'i Island in the south east to Ni'ihau in the north west. These form the Leeward Hawaiian Islands

But there are also the Windward Hawaiian Islands that extend beyond Ni'ihau, encompassing hundreds of islands from Nihoa to Kure in the far north west. Up until now I have thought these islands were independent or owned by some other nation.

I read in wikipedia that the Windward islands, most of them, are also owned by the USA. But whether or not they form part of Hawaii State was unspecified.

One of the furthest out windward islands is Midway Island. I knew that was owned by the US, but I didnt know it was a part of the Hawaiian island chain. It is owned by the US but isnt a part of Hawaii state.

Answer 1

The State of Hawaii includes all of the islands in the archipelagic chain, from Kure Atoll to Hawaii Island (the big island), except for Midway Atoll.  Most of our maps of Hawaii only show the seven large islands because (1) these are much, much bigger, and (2) they have people on them.  The northwestern Hawaiian Islands (the little tiny ones that stretch to Kure Atoll) are all very, very small in area and are uninhabited.  In fact, they're all part of a National Wildlife Refuge.  There's not much need to map them most of the time.

Originally the islands were part of the Kingdom of Hawaii.  After American interests toppled the monarchy, the US Government annexed Hawaii to the United States in 1898.  Because the Kingdom of Hawaii owned Johnston Atoll, this is how the US came to own that territory as well.

In 1959 the Territory of Hawaii was admitted into the United States as a state.  Johnston Atoll was excluded and remains a separate territory today.  Midway Atoll was always politically separate.  The US Government annexed that island in the 1860s using the Guano Act, long before it annexed the rest of Hawaii.  For this reason it was always treated as a separate territory, since it had a separate political history.  It was also not included with the rest of the state when it was created in 1959.  However, other than Johnston Atoll and Midway Atoll, all other islands that were annexed in 1898 became part of the State of Hawaii in 1959.

There have been talks to incorporate Johnston Atoll and Midway Atoll into the State of Hawaii, (as well as some other uninhabited island possessions of the US) so that the federal government wouldn't have to govern them directly (which it doesn't do very well).  But, so far nothing like this has occurred.  It may happen one day, or it may not.