Baker Island is an uninhabited atoll located just north of the equator in the central Pacific Ocean about 3,100 km (1,670 nm) southwest of Honolulu. The island is almost half way between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbor is Howland Island 68 kilometres to the north.
Baker Island National Wildlife Refuge consists of the 405 acre (1.64 km²) island and a surrounding 30,500 acres (123 km²) of submerged land. The island is now a National Wildlife Refuge managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an insular area under the U.S. Department of the Interior. Baker Island is an unincorporated and unorganized territory of the U.S..
Its defense is the responsibility of the United States; though uninhabited, it is visited annually by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. For statistical purposes, Baker is sometimes grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands.