Which island is part of the Hawaiian archipelago, but not part of the state of Hawaii?

Most are probably familiar with the Hawaiian islands of Lanai, Molokai, Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island of Hawaii, but what about the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands? The Islands of the NW part of the chain are mostly uninhabited, but are still considered a part of the Hawaiian archipelago, which stretches nearly 1,600 miles (2,575 km).

The only portion of the archipelago that is not considered part of the state of Hawaii is Midway Atoll. The tiny isle measures 25.6 sq mi (66.3 km2), of which only 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) is land; the remainder (23.2 sq miles or 60.1 km2) is a lagoon.

Midway Atoll is an unincorporated territory, and officially classified as part of the ‘United States Minor Outlying Islands’, rather than the Hawaiian chain. It was annexed by the U.S. in 1867, some 30 years before the rest of the Hawaiian archipelago. As its name suggests, it is located at just about the midway point between the U.S. and East Asia and was strategically important for both military and commercial purposes. Today, Midway is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services as the ‘Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge’.

From end to end, the Hawaiian archipelago spans a greater distance than that from San Francisco, CA to Dallas, TX. It stretches from the shores of the Big Island in the Southeast, where lava from Kilauea still flows, expanding the island, to the coral fringes of Kure Atoll, a Northwestern Hawaiian island nearing its end.