It is best known as the island Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were searching for but failed to find when they and their airplane disappeared on July 2, 1937, during their planned round-the-world flight.

Airstrips constructed to accommodate her planned stopover were subsequently damaged in World War II, not maintained, and gradually disappeared.

In modern times, it is a nature reserve, and there are some historical remains from the colony and a stone tower called Earhart Light.

The terrain is low-lying and sandy: a coral island surrounded by a narrow fringing reef with a slightly raised central area.

A 1942 eyewitness description spoke of "a low grove of dead and decaying kou trees" on a very shallow hill at the island's center.

The island, with its surrounding marine waters, has been recognized as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports seabird colonies of lesser frigatebirds, masked boobies, red-tailed tropicbirds and sooty terns, as well as serving as a migratory stopover for bristle-thighed curlews.

It lies within a nautical time zone, which is 12 hours behind UTC, named International Date Line West (IDLW).

Sparse remnants of trails and other surface features indicate a possible early Polynesian presence, including excavations and mounds, stacked rocks, and a footpath made of long, flat stones.

In the 1860s, James Duncan Hague noted discovering the remains of a hut, canoe fragments, a blue bead, and a human skeleton buried in the sand.

[8] However, the only modern archaeological survey of Howland, conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers in 1987, found no evidence of prehistoric settlement or use of the island.

[9] A later conservation plan by the US Fish and Wildlife Service suggests that Howland was likely used as a stopover or meeting point as opposed to being permanently occupied.

[11][12] Daniel MacKenzie of the American whaler Minerva Smith was unaware of Worth's sighting when he charted the island in 1828 and named it after his ship's owners[13] on December 1, 1828.

Captain William Bligh of HMS Bounty, in his diary after the mutiny, described stopping at the island shortly after being set adrift by the mutineers in April 1789.

[citation needed]  Bligh's account on Howland Island is open to question since his route in the boat began between Tonga and Tofua and ran more or less west directly to Timor.

[15] Other entrepreneurs were approached as George and Matthew Howland, who later became United States Guano Company members, engaged Mr. Stetson to visit the island on the ship Rousseau under Captain Pope.

Although the recruits had signed on as part of a scientific expedition and expected to spend their three-month assignment collecting botanical and biological samples, once out to sea, they were told, according to one of the Jarvis Island colonists, George West, "Your names will go down in history" and that the islands would become "famous air bases in a route that will connect Australia with California".

[22] The settlement was named Itascatown after the USCGC Itasca that brought the colonists to Howland and made regular cruises between the other equatorial islands during that era.

The fledgling colonists were given large stocks of canned food, water, and other supplies, including a gasoline-powered refrigerator, radio equipment, medical kits, and (characteristic of that era) vast quantities of cigarettes.

Most of the colonists' endeavors involved making hourly weather observations and constructing rudimentary infrastructure on the island, including clearing a landing strip for airplanes.

Howland Island was designated as a scheduled refueling stop for American pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan on their round-the-world flight in 1937.

Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds were used by the Bureau of Air Commerce to construct three graded, unpaved runways meant to accommodate Earhart's twin-engined Lockheed Model 10 Electra.

Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae, New Guinea, and their radio transmissions were picked up near the island when their aircraft reached the vicinity, but they failed to arrive.

[28] After the largest search and rescue attempt in history up to that time, the U.S. Navy concluded that the Electra had run out of fuel, and Earhart and Noonan ditched at sea and perished.

Based on the strength of the transmission signals from Earhart, the Coast Guard concluded that the plane ran out of fuel north of Howland.

[28] Many later studies came to the same conclusion; however, an alternative hypothesis that Earhart and Noonan may have landed the plane on Gardner Island (now called Nikumaroro) and died as castaways has been considered.

[29] A Japanese air attack on December 8, 1941, by 14 twin-engined Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" bombers of Chitose Kōkūtai, from Kwajalein islands, killed colonists Richard "Dicky" Kanani Whaley and Joseph Kealoha Keliʻihananui.

[34] No aircraft is known to have landed on the island, though anchorages nearby were used by float planes and flying boats during World War II.

For example, on July 10, 1944, a U.S. Navy Martin PBM-3-D Mariner flying boat (BuNo 48199), piloted by William Hines, had an engine fire and made a forced landing in the ocean off Howland.

Hines beached the aircraft, and though it burned, the crew were unharmed, rescued by the USCGC Balsam, transferred to a subchaser, and taken to Canton Island.

Representatives from the agency visit the island on average once every two years, often coordinating transportation with amateur radio operators or the U.S. Coast Guard to defray the high cost of logistical support.