TERAINA ISLAND

formerly called Washington Island, Prospect Island, or New York Island, coral atoll of the Northern Line Islands, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. With a circumference of 9 miles (14 km), the atoll has a land area of 3 square miles (8 square km). It was sighted in 1798 by an American navigator, Edmund Fanning. Annexed by Britain in 1889, it was included in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony in 1916. It became a part of independent Kiribati in 1979. The island is owned by Fanning Island Plantations, Ltd., a copra-processing firm. Pop. (1988 est.) 481.