Malden Island importance as a protected area for breeding seabirds. The island is designated as the "Malden Island Wildlife Sanctuary". In 2014 the Kiribati government established a fishing exclusion zone around each of the southern Line Islands (Caroline (commonly called Millennium), Flint, Vostok, Malden, and Starbuck). Malden Island is located south of the equator, south of Honolulu, Hawaii, and more than west of the coast of South America. The nearest land is uninhabited Starbuck Island, to the southwest. The closest inhabited place is Tongareva (Penrhyn Island), to the southwest. The nearest airport is on Kiritimati (Christmas Island), to the northwest. Other nearby
International Date Line different calendar dates are observed at the same time in different places on Earth. For example, at 10:15 UTC Thursday, it is 23:15 Wednesday in American Samoa (), Thursday in most of the world, and 00:15 Friday in Kiritimati (). During the first hour (UTC 10:00–10:59), all three calendar dates include inhabited places. During the second hour (UTC 11:00–11:59) one of the calendar dates is limited to an uninhabited maritime time zone twelve hours behind UTC (UTC−12). According to the clock, the first areas to experience a new day and a New Year are islands that use UTC+14. These include