KANTON ATOLL

Kanton also spelled Canton, also called Abariringa, largest and northernmost of the Phoenix Islands, a coral group situated in the west-central Pacific Ocean and constituting part of Kiribati. Located 1,630 miles (2,610 km) southwest of Hawaii, Kanton's circular coral reef, occupying 3.5 square miles (9 square km), encloses a lagoon 7 by 3 miles (11 by 5 km). Sighted 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, then by British. Britain claimed Canton in 1889 for use as a transpacific cable station. In the 1930s the atoll gained importance as a transpacific air stop. Rival U.S. and British claims were settled in 1939 by an agreement under which Canton and Enderbury Atoll (32 miles southeast) were to be jointly administered for 50 years. Pan American World Airways built facilities there and began using Canton as a stop in 1940. During World War II it served as a strategic air base. British, American, and Australian airlines resumed using Canton after the war, but with the advent of long-range jet aircraft, the airfield is used only as an emergency stop. Starting in 1970, the atoll was used by the United States as a tracking station for antiballistic missiles. When, in 1979, the Phoenix Islands became a part of independent Kiribati, the spelling was changed to Kanton. Pop. (1990) 45.