Aono Raina High Sea

South of the Hawaiian Islands, the Line Islands divide the ocean into a long succession of reef edges, lagoons, and pale sandbars. The archipelago consists of eleven atolls and coral islands extending about 2,350 kilometres northwest to southeast. Kiritimati is the largest atoll by land area, Starbuck Island lies near the Pacific's geographic centre, and Kiritimati, Tabuaeran, and Teraina support communities. The chain lies within the Polynesian Triangle, although its later settlements drew heavily on Gilbertese migration.

Coral marae and village remains on such islands as Kiritimati, Tabuaeran, Teraina, Malden, Millennium, and Flint indicate earlier settlement dating back to the fourteenth century. Cook and Fanning encountered parts of the group late in the eighteenth century, and nineteenth-century whalers came seeking water, wood, and provisions.

The islands were long approached through uncertain anchorage and open-water passages, where reef shelves and lagoon mouths offered the main opportunities to land. Broad passages dominate the distances between landfalls. Most atolls contain partly or fully enclosed lagoons, while Vostok and Jarvis stand apart for lacking that sheltered interior water.