What lands are part of the United States?

Answer 1

The actual territory of the United States is called "incorporated territory." Here, "incorporated" means "made a part of the body of." Incorporated areas of the United States include the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Palmyra Atoll.

Some more information:

* Palmyra Atoll is privately owned by the Nature Conservancy and administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior. It is an archipelago of about 50 small islands about 1.56 square miles (4 km²) in area that lies about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of Honolulu. The atoll was acquired by the United States in the 1898 annexation of the Republic of Hawaii. When the Territory of Hawaii was incorporated on April 30, 1900, Palmyra Atoll was incorporated as part of that territory. However, when Hawaii became a state in 1959, Palmyra Atoll was explicitly separated from the state, remaining an incorporated territory but receiving no new organized government. Unincorporated territories are NOT a "part" of the United States, but are administered by the United States:

* Guam * Northern Mariana Islands (commonwealth) * Puerto Rico (commonwealth) * United States Virgin Islands * American Samoa, technically unorganized, but self-governing under a constitution last revised in 1967 * Baker Island, uninhabited * Howland Island, uninhabited * Jarvis Island, uninhabited * Johnston Atoll, uninhabited * Kingman Reef, uninhabited * Petrel Islands, uninhabited * Serranilla Bank, uninhabited * Midway Islands, no indigenous inhabitants, currently included in the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge * Navassa Island, uninhabited (claimed by Haiti) * Wake Atoll consisting of Peale, Wake and Wilkes Islands[4], no indigenous inhabitants, only contractor personnel (claimed by the Marshall Islands)