Kanton Atoll

Kanton Atoll, largest and northernmost of the Phoenix Islands, a coral group, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. Located approximately 1,600 miles (2,600 km) southwest of Hawaii, Kanton’s circular coral reef encloses a lagoon extending 7 miles by 3 miles (11 km by 5 km).

Sighted by travelers early in the 19th century, the atoll is named for an American whaling ship wrecked there in 1854. After 1856 the atoll’s guano deposits were worked until depleted, first by American interests and then by British. Britain claimed Canton (as the name was then spelled) in 1889 for use as a transpacific cable station. In the 1930s the atoll gained importance as a transpacific air stop; a 1939 agreement placed Canton and Enderbury Atoll (32 miles [51 km] southeast) under joint U.S.-British control so that airplanes of both countries could use them. During World War II Canton served as a strategic air base. After the war, British, American, and Australian airlines resumed using Canton, but, after the advent of long-range jet aircraft, the airfield was used only as an emergency stop. The United States used the atoll as a tracking station for antiballistic missiles beginning in 1970; the tracking station is no longer on the island. In 1979, when the Phoenix Islands became a part of independent Kiribati, the spelling was changed to Kanton. Total land area 3.5 square miles (9 square km). Pop. (2005 prelim.) 41.