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Islands Facts

Islands Facts
An island is a piece of land surrounded completely by water. Islands can be found in rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans and can be very small or hundreds of square miles in size. Continental islands are located on a continent's continental shelf, while oceanic islands are remote from any continental land mass but instead were created by volcanoes or earthquake-type disturbances. There are also many other types of islands found on earth. While most islands occur naturally in nature, some islands are manmade.
Interesting Islands Facts:
The largest islands in the world include Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin Island, and Sumatra.
Greenland, which is the world's largest island, is a continental island because it is part of North America's continent. Greenland is 822,706 square miles in size, but only has 56,000 residents.
Great Britain is a continental island while Hawaii is an oceanic island, created from volcanoes.
Manitoulin Island, located in Ontario, Canada, is the largest island located in a freshwater lake.
The largest island located in a river is Ilha do Bananal, Brazil.
The largest island in the world that is not inhabited by humans is Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada.
The largest island located within a lake, within an island is Treasure Island, located in Lake Mindemoya, on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada.
The most populated island in the world is Java, in Indonesia, with more than 150 million residents, making up more than half of Indonesia's total population.
Coral islands are a type of island made from the skeletons of coral that build up over time to create reefs.
Coral islands may become atoll islands, if the water level falls, leaving a lagoon in the center. These are more common in the tropics.
The highest mountain located on an island is Puncak Jaya located on New Guinea Island.
Japan's Kansai Airport is located on a manmade island. Other manmade islands include Flevopolder in Netherlands, Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, Rokko Island in Japan, and Port Island in Japan.
When an island is referred to as a desert island it means that it is uninhabited, not that is technically a desert.
It is estimated that approximately 1/6th of the world's population lives on an island.
Borneo is home to creatures that exist nowhere else on earth. Proboscis monkeys are an example of an animal found only in Borneo, but there are hundreds of plant and animal species found there and nowhere else.
It is estimated that as much as 80% of Madagascar's plant and animal life cannot be found elsewhere on earth.
Very tiny islands are referred to as islets.
Islands found in rivers or lakes are sometimes referred to as eyots.
Tropical islands include coral islands, granite islands, and volcanic islands.
The Maldives, Tonga, Polynesia, and Nauru are examples of islands that formed from coral reefs.
Seychelles and Tioman are examples of islands that formed from granite.
A group of islands located in the same area are referred to as archipelagos. The Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, the British Isles, Greece, Hawaii, the Bahamas, New York City, and Azores are all archipelagos.


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