Insular area

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For the region within an animal brain sometimes known as "insular area", see Insular cortex.
Not to be confused with United States Minor Outlying Islands.
This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has
insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more
precise citations. (October 2008)
An insular area is a United States territory that is neither a part of one of the 50 U.S. states nor
the U.S. federal District of Columbia.[1] Such areas are called "insular" from the Latin word
insula ("island") because they were once administered by the War Department's Bureau of
Insular Affairs, now the Office of Insular Affairs at the Department of the Interior. The term
insular possession is also sometimes used.
Congress has extended citizenship rights by birth to all inhabited territories except American
Samoa, and these citizens may vote and run for office in any U.S. jurisdiction in which they are
residents. The people of American Samoa are U.S. nationals by place of birth, or they are U.S.
citizens by parentage, local courthouse application at age 18 or naturalization after residing in a
State. Nationals are free to move around and seek employment within the whole United States
without immigration restrictions but cannot vote or hold office outside of American Samoa.[citation
needed]

Residents of insular areas do not pay U.S. federal income taxes but are required to pay other U.S.
federal taxes such as import/export taxes,[2] federal commodity taxes,[3] social security taxes, etc.
Individuals working for the federal government pay federal income taxes while all residents are
required to pay federal payroll taxes (Social Security[4] and Medicare).
The U.S. State Department uses the term insular area to refer not only to these territories under
the sovereignty of the United States, but also those independent nations that have signed a
Compact of Free Association with the United States. While these nations participate in many
otherwise domestic programs, they are legally distinct from the United States and their
inhabitants are not United States citizens or nationals.[citation needed]
U.S. insular areas can be incorporated territories (i.e., incorporated within all provisions of the
U.S. Constitution) or unincorporated (areas in which the U.S. Constitution applies partially).
From the organization of the Northwest Territory in 1789, all areas not admitted as States were
under the direct control of Congress as organized incorporated territories, with some political
autonomy at the local level. Since the admission of Hawaii to the Union in 1959, there have been
no incorporated territories other than the uninhabited Palmyra Atoll (formerly part of the Hawaii
Territory, it was excluded from the act of admission). Several overseas unincorporated territories
are now independent countries including Cuba, the Philippines, Federated States of Micronesia
and the Republic of Palau.

Unlike within the states, sovereignty over insular areas rests not with the local people, but in
Congress. In most areas, Congress has granted considerable self-rule through an Organic Act
which functions as a local constitution. The Northwest Ordinance grants territories the right to
send a non-voting delegate to the U.S. Congress. The United States government is part of several
international disputes over the disposition of certain maritime and insular sovereignties some of
which would be considered territories. See International territorial disputes of the United States.
See also: Organized incorporated territories of the United States and Unincorporated territories
of the United States

Contents
[hide]

1 List and status of insular areas

o 1.1 Incorporated (integral part of United States)

1.1.1 Inhabited

1.1.2 Uninhabited

o 1.2 Unincorporated (United States' possessions)

1.2.1 Inhabited

1.2.2 Uninhabited

o 1.3 Freely associated states

o 1.4 Former territories

2 See also

3 Notes

4 References

5 External links

List and status of insular areas[edit]

Locations of the insular areas of the United States

Several islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific are considered insular areas of the United States.

Incorporated (integral part of United States)[edit]

Inhabited[edit]

none

Uninhabited[edit]

Palmyra Atoll (uninhabited, mostly owned by The Nature Conservancy but

administered by the Office of Insular Affairs; part of the United States Minor Outlying
Islands)

Unincorporated (United States' possessions)[edit]

Inhabited[edit]

American Samoa (officially unorganized, although self-governing under authority

of the U.S. Department of the Interior)

Guam (organized under Organic Act of 1950)

Northern Mariana Islands (commonwealth, organized under 1977 Covenant)

Puerto Rico (commonwealth, organized under Puerto Rican Federal Relations

Act)[5]note 1

United States Virgin Islands (organized under Revised Organic Act of 1954)

Uninhabited[edit]
Along with Palmyra Atoll, these form the United States Minor Outlying Islands:

Baker Island

Howland Island

Jarvis Island

Johnston Atoll

Kingman Reef

Midway Atoll (administered as a National Wildlife Refuge)

Navassa Island (disputed with Haiti)

Wake Island (disputed with Marshall Islands)

Serranilla Bank (disputed with Colombia)

Bajo Nuevo Bank (disputed with Colombia)

From July 18, 1947 until October 1, 1994, the U.S. administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific
Islands, but later entered into a new political relationship with all four political units (one of
which is the Northern Mariana Islands listed above, the others being the three freely associated
states noted below).

Freely associated states[edit]

The freely associated states are the three sovereign states with which the United States has
entered into a Compact of Free Association.

Marshall Islands

Federated States of Micronesia

Palau

Former territories[edit]

Philippines, granted to U.S. through the Treaty of Paris in 1898, independence

recognized on July 4, 1946.

Cuba, granted to U.S. through the Treaty of Paris in 1898, independence

recognized on May 20, 1902.

Panama Canal Zone, under effective joint Panama-U.S. control under provisions
of the HayBunau-Varilla Treaty from 1903 to 1979.

See also[edit]

Commonwealth (United States insular area)

Dependent territory

Guano Islands Act

Guantanamo Bay

Insular Cases

Political divisions of the United States

Territorial acquisitions of the United States

Territories of the United States

Territories of the United States on stamps

Unorganized territory

Notes[edit]
1. In November 2008 a district court judge ruled that a sequence of prior Congressional actions
had had the cumulative effect of changing Puerto Rico's status to incorporated.[6] However, as of
April 2011 the issue had not yet made its way through the courts,[7] and as of January 2013 the
U.S. government still referred to Puerto Rico as unincorporated.[8]

References[edit]
1.

Jump up ^ "Definitions of Insular Area Political Organizations". Office of

Insular Affairs. U.S. Department of the Interior. 2007-01-11. Retrieved 2008-11-09.

2.

Jump up ^ "Puerto Ricans pay import/export taxes". Stanford.wellsphere.com.

Retrieved August 14, 2010.

3.

Jump up ^ "Puerto Ricans pay federal commodity taxes".

Stanford.wellsphere.com. Retrieved 2011-10-30.

4.

Jump up ^ "Internal Revenue Service. ',Topic 903 Federal Employment Tax in

Puerto Rico',". Irs.gov. December 18, 2009. Retrieved August 14, 2010.

5.

Jump up ^ Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act, Act No. of 1950

6.

Jump up ^ Consejo de Salud Playa Ponce v. Johnny Rullan, p.28: "The

Congressional incorporation of Puerto Rico throughout the past century has extended the
entire Constitution to the island ...."

7.

Jump up ^ Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpi, "The Insular Cases: A Comparative Historical

Study of Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, and the Philippines", The Federal Lawyer, March/April
2011. http://www.aspira.org/files/legal_opinion_on_pr_insular_cases.pdf p. 25: "In light
of the [Supreme Court] ruling in Boumediene, in the future the Supreme Court will be
called upon to reexamine the Insular Cases doctrine as applied to Puerto Rico and other
US territories."

8.

Jump up ^ accessed 26 January 2013: "Puerto Rico is a self-governing,

unincorporated territory of the United States located in the Caribbean".

External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Insular areas of the United States.

Office of Insular Affairs

Department of the Interior Definitions of Insular Area Political Types

Rubin, Richard, "The Lost Islands", The Atlantic Monthly, February 2001

Chapter 7: Puerto Rico and the Outlying Areas, U.S. Census Bureau, Geographic Areas
Reference Manual

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Coordinates:

1815N 6630W / 18.250N 66.500W

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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Insular_area&oldid=640027701"
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This page was last modified on 29 December 2014, at 02:11.