Why New Zealand is on a map of the USA

Backstory time: there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to maps without New Zealand. It’s an unfortunately large category. Most maps are like this one from the 404 page of New Zealand’s government: Years ago, someone made a joke post that was just a map of the United States of America, which is therefore a map without New Zealand…or is it? Let’s take a look at those little islands in the corner of the map, off to the left of Alaska and Hawaii. These are the USA’s inhabited Pacific island territories, specifically Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa. Specifically, we’re going to focus on American Samoa, where there’s an extremely miniscule dot in the top left sub-box: This dot is Swains Island, or Olohega. It has less than 1 square mile of land, has been uninhabited since 2008, and is kinda sorta maybe part of New Zealand. Here’s a better picture of the island in question: Olohega is your classic coral atoll with a central lagoon, known as Lake Namo. Located in the South…