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Howland Island (U.S. Minor Outlying Islands)

image by Joseph McMillan

Unofficial flag
image by Skip Wheeler

ISO Code: UM-84
ISO 3166-3 Code: PUUM
FIPS 10-4 Code: HQ
MARC Code: up
IOC Code: Not Applicable
Status: unincorporated territory of the United States

See also:

According to the CIA World Factbook:

Howland Island - 1.6 sq. km., uninhabited; almost totally covered with grass; administered by the US. Department of the Interior (same as Baker Island) - airport constructed in 1937 for scheduled stop on the round-the-world flight of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan - they left Lae, New Guinea, for Howland Island, but were never seen again; the airstrip is no longer serviceable.

Jarig Bakker, 29 January 2000

As an additional note: artifacts have been found at Howland Island indicating that at one time it did have a settlement, probably from the Polynesian migrations.
Phil Nelson, 29 January 2000

Claimed by the US under the Guano Act. According to the Interior Department, the US landed colonists on the island in 1936 to reassert its claims but they were evacuated in 1942.
Phil Nelson, 25 April 2000

The unofficial flag would be accepted as a flag of these possessions but in digital form only.
John Moody, 2 March 2018

The flag is described in NAVA News, 208, 2010 and Flaggen, Wappen und Siegel 118, 2017.
Esteban Rivera, 5 March 2018

To quote Skip Wheeler from an email sent to me. "The Howland-Baker-Jarvis design is a definite lift from the American flag. First of all he separated the 3rd and the 4th white stripe which ran both across the entire length of the flag". "The 4th red stripe between those two white stripes was also across the entire length of the flag. That makes three alternating white and red stripes in the centre of the flag's length. The canton of the U.S.A. flag covered all of the remaining stripes over and under the three visible stripes. The three stripes symbolize the equator and since there are the three islands (but he never did mention that to me, I guess they symbolize the three islands). The blue is the Pacific Ocean. Baker and Johnston islands are north of the equator and Jarvis lies south of the equator.
"He placed the three stars to represent the island in their geographic positions according to the equator. He then ran a diagonal line from the top left to the bottom right and centred the three stars on that line to give the flag a degree of uniformity".

Actually a well thought out and simple plan and although everyone in his office was supportive of his design his boss thought it was a waste of time and the flag design came to an end. The designer was with the Fish and Wildlife service his name was either Mark or Mike.
John Moody, 15 September 2019