Talk:Line Islands

message: Enzino- I do not think it is helpful to change these names from Fanning Atoll to Fanning Island.  For example, Christmas Island is an island in the Indian Ocean, Christmas Atoll is the one in Kiribati.  Of course, one may often see these places called "Christmas Island" or "Fanning Island", but the trend in geography is to name atolls as atolls. - Marshman 22:42, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I do not think so. I have lived on Christmas Island recently, and no one says Christmas Atoll for naming it. Of course, it is an atoll (and the biggest and oldest in the world). It is also bigger than the other Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) and many more people live there. The official name, put in the Kiribati constitution (12th July 1979) is Christmas Island (or Kiritimati). For the Gilbertese these two names are the same. For the same reason, Fanning and Washington are called islands and not atolls. And most of the people there, even when they speak in Gilbertese, call them Fanning Island or Washington Island (the Gilbertese names are not very comon, even official with English names).
There are two Christmas Islands in the world and that is not a problem for Wikipedia.
--Enzino 10:19, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. They are islands, but a type of island called an atoll. But if you want to not pass on anything of geography and just use "island" not much more I can say. Obviously if you think the English name is used more than the Kiribati name, then change that too.  I'm no longer interested in trying to take Wikipedia anywhere. - Marshman 16:58, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I have not the power of changing names. And I totally agree with you : these are atoll islands, not simply islands. But nowhere you will see, as a name, Christmas Atoll. Its name is Christmas Island, or Kiritimati (rare). As written in the constitution. I cannot change a constitution. --Enzino 18:39, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trend? Trendy? 

message: On the picture it's easy to see that's there a lot of salt water on the atoll... The lagoon is not dry. It's just becoming dry. Even if the atoll is somehow dry (lack of rain), it's also humid. Just go there and see... When you revert, just check before.Enzino 13:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I have lived on Xmas, I am aware that what I said is not exactly correct. Much of the lagoon is now dry land, but not all of it.  So to be correct will require further explanation - Marshman 04:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dry land? 

message: I have to say, it was rather strange to read "discovered" in this article. I don't mean to sound "coy" (I read through this talk page), but can't the article say something like "Captain Cook, the first European/Westerner/foreigner/whatever to sight the islands, named them..." or something like that? --SameerKhan 08:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well no one replied to my comment in a week so I went ahead and made a small change. --SameerKhan 08:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Discovered" 

message: The article lists a number of islands and states that the U.S. gave up its claims to them . When? Why? How? WikiParker 17:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Many of the islands in the Line group (with the exception of Jarvis, Palmyra and Kingman) were given to Kiribati upon its full independence in 1979. I have never researched "how" or "why" they were transfered and not the other three, but I may want to in the future. --Henry W. Schmitt 04:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. claims 

message: According to the Wikipedia entry on Kiribati, "Some of the islands of Kiribati, especially in the remote Line Islands, were formerly used by the United States and United Kingdom for nuclear weapons testing including hydrogen bombs in the late 1950s and early 1960s." Is this true? Do we have a source? Headhitter (talk) 07:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nuclear weapons testing 

message: In the Spanish Wikipedia article about Line Islands, it is mentioned that Portuguese explorer in the service of Spanish Crown, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, founded a colony in Christmas Island, called Puerto Nuevo, in 1606. It was populated by creoles from New Spain.However, no source is given for this information, neither is further history of this supposed colony stated. As I googled, no other mention of this colony than this one in the said Wikipedia article came across. Besides, I've read a lot about Quiros and his voyages, and never have I found any mention about this. In fact he made a voyage in 1606 from Callao, Peru to the island of Espiritu Santo in modern Vanuatu, and established a colony there, which was abadoned within a month but it was called Nueba Hietusalem, not Puerto Nuevo. I can't speak Spanish so I didn't write this to the Spanish Wikipedia. Can someone look up further about this and if the Spanish article information is true (which I doubt) then it must be added to the English article too, but if it's not, then it should becremoved from the Spanish article 
RickyRr (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish Colonization in Christmas Island?