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Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge
Nat'l Recreation Area

Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge

Hawaii · HI

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Managed by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

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We display cached information from agency feeds. Hours, fees, permits, closures, fire restrictions, and conditions change without notice. Outdoors is not the permitting authority. Confirm current conditions for this park using the links above before you go — you are responsible for compliance. Last verified by us: May 20, 2026. Our copy is more than a month old — please reconfirm with the agency before relying on it.Spot an error in our data?

About

Imported description
Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, 14 degrees south of the equator and about 2,500 miles south of Hawaii, is at the east end of the Samoan archipelago, 180 miles east of Pago Pago, American Samoa. It is the smallest atoll in the world with about 20 acres of land and 1,600 acres of lagoon. The square reef protects two small, emergent islands. Rose Island, the larger of the two, is low, sandy, and thickly vegetated with shrubs, vines, and trees. It is an important nesting area for the threatened green sea turtle and endangered hawksbill sea turtle. Rose Atoll is part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The office is in Honolulu.

Source: recreation.gov

From Wikipedia

Rose Atoll, sometimes called Rose Island or Motu O Manu by people of the Manu'a Islands, is an oceanic atoll within the U.S. territory of American Samoa. An uninhabited wildlife refuge, it is the southernmost point belonging to the United States, about 170 miles to the east of Tutuila, the principal island of American Samoa. The land area is just 0.05 km2 at high tide. The total area of the atoll, including lagoon and reef flat amounts to 6.33 km2. Just west of the northernmost point is a channel into the lagoon, about 80 metres (260 ft) wide. There are two islets on the northeastern rim of the reef, larger Rose Island, 3.5 metres (11 ft) high, in the east and the non-vegetated Sand Island, 1.5 metres (5 ft) high, in the north.

Source: Wikipedia — text licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Verify alerts and operational details with the managing agency below.

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