US Territory Guide

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The United States has several non-State entities as well which you may be interested in summitting. The most notable one is the District of Columbia. Others may be interested in the 5 populated territories (American Samoa, Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands). There are 11 additional territories – 3 in the Caribbean and 8 in the Pacific. But I thought embassies were territories too? This popular misconception is wrong. Paraphrasing from the US State Dept, while embassies represent sovereign states, they are on the host country’s territory.

The following map/table data is gathered from internet resources such as “Wikipedia”, the “CIA Factbook” and other online articles. It is suggested that you start with wikipedia’s “Territories of the United States” which describes the history and nuances of all the types of territories. You may find the Dept of Interior’s “Definitions of Insular Area Political Organizations useful. The USGS has “Territorial Acquisitions of the United States” which mentions these territories, along with a map of the territorial acquisitions which form the 50 States of today.

The elevations and locations of the 11 unpopulated territories should be taken as estimates only. Remember that many of the US Minor Outlying Islands (the 8 unpopulated territories in the Pacific) have been heavily modified from WWII onward. If you find the “true” highpoint today, it would be hard to tell whether it was man-made or not. Please note that special permission is required to land on many of the unpopulated territories (wildlife refuge, military, etc).

Resources

Through the “Apex to Zenith” newsletter, club members receive continuing coverage on territories. Updates (access, monument status, etc) are found in the newsletter and posted online in this guide. A small sample of articles are:

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Finally, you can see who has completed the populated territories at our “Territory Score Board” page.

[You may re-sort this table by clicking the small arrows found in the column headers.]

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Place
(info panel)
Type Highpoint
(wiki)
Access Elevation
(forum)

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This section contains information panels for each “territory”. Click on the name of the “territory” and a panel opens up presenting the details about the “territory”.

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Please contact us at guides@highpointers.org if you have any suggestions or trip reports/updates you would like to share.