Attu Island

Attu Island

Attu (Aleut: Atan) is the westernmost and largest island in the Near Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and the westernmost point of land relative to Alaska, the United States, and North America. The island is currently uninhabited.

The island was the site of the only World War II land battle fought on an incorporated territory of the United States (the Battle of Attu), and its battlefield area is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Attu Station, a former Coast Guard LORAN station, is located at 52°51' north latitude, 173°11' east longitude, making it, by longitude, one of the easternmost points of Alaska (and the United States). Attu is nearly seven degrees west of the 180° longitude line. (By longitude, a second Aleutian Island, Semisopochnoi Island at 179°46' E is the easternmost location in the United States and North America, being only 14 minutes west of the 180° line, just east of which lies Amatignak Island, which at 179°06' W is the westernmost location in the United States and North America by longitude.

Attu is nearly 1,100 miles (960 nmi; 1,800 km) from the Alaskan mainland and 750 miles (650 nmi; 1,210 km) northeast of the northernmost of the Kurile Islands of Russia, and it is 4,800 miles (4,200 nmi; 7,700 km) from the capital city, Washington DC. Attu is about 20 by 35 miles (32 by 56 km) in size with a land area of 344.7 square miles (893 km2), making it #23 on the list of largest islands in the United States. The population as of the 2000 census was 20 people, all at the Attu Station.

As of 1982, the only significant trees on the island were those planted by American soldiers at a chapel constructed after the 1943 battle when the Japanese occupation was over.

Although Attu Island is the westernmost body of land east of the International Date Line its time zone is UTC-10, which means that locations to the south-south east (such as the uninhabited Baker Island and Howland Island in UTC -12 and Niue, Midway Atoll and (formerly) American Samoa in UTC -11) have earlier clocks and were still in the 20th Century when Attu advanced to the 21st.