User:Alice/Kitchen/Island nations



Island nations and territories tend to defy a tidy geographical hierarchy. On a planet covered 70% by interconnected oceans, in a literal sense every place is an island. But the really big ones we think of as continents, leaving the smaller islands – scattered far and wide – as the "leftovers" of geography. Which often makes them some of the most unique and interesting destinations.

But what is a nation?

The most tolerant definition is any distinctive geographical territory that regards itself as a nation. Indicators may include issuing their own stamps, coins and banknotes; possessing a separate legal and or judicial system; having distinctive national costumes; speaking discrete languages from their neighbours or ostensible current rulers; a long-standing historically defined border or a frontier delineated by natural features such as a river, desert, mountain ridge, lake or gorge. Obviously being an island helps gives a head start with the latter indicator!

Please note that, on our definition above, whether a nation has achieved either de jure or de facto recognition as a state or is internally self governing or not is largely irrelevant for our purposes. That means that, although Scotland is clearly a nation, it is not included in these lists (since it shares the partly Scots island of Great Britain with the other "home nations" of England and Wales).

Our various region articles attempt to group these island nations logically for the traveller (sometimes bending official geography to do so).

However, for the purposes of this travel topic we don't include nations that share an island or islands (such as Haiti and the Dominican Republic which share the island of Hispaniola, or Indonesia) but we do include island nations that are wholly archipelagos (such as the Philippines or the Cook Islands). We also don't include nations that have a portion of their national territory on a continental landmass (consequently excluding such nations as Equatorial Guinea). Even despite these artificial exclusions, the list still extends to nearly one hundred:

Island nations of the Arctic Ocean
These are the near-polar island nations north of 60&deg;:
 * Faroe Islands
 * Greenland
 * Iceland

Island nations of the North Atlantic
In the northern hemisphere are
 * Alderney
 * The Azores
 * Bermuda
 * The Canary Islands
 * Cape Verde
 * Guernsey
 * Ireland - a perennially politically hot potato this one!
 * The Isle of Man
 * Jersey
 * Madeira
 * Newfoundland
 * Saint-Pierre and Miquelon
 * Sark

Island nations of the Mediterranean

 * Corsica
 * Malta
 * Sardinia

Island nations of the South Atlantic
In the southern hemisphere are
 * Ascension
 * Falkland Islands
 * Saint Helena
 * São Tomé and Príncipe
 * Tristan da Cunha

Caribbean island nations
Caribbean island nations are often collectively called the West Indies and are near the Americas:
 * Anguilla
 * Antigua and Barbuda
 * Aruba
 * Bahamas
 * Barbados
 * Bonaire
 * British Virgin Islands
 * The Cayman Islands
 * Cuba
 * Curaçao
 * Dominica
 * Grenada
 * Guadeloupe
 * Jamaica
 * Martinique
 * Montserrat
 * Puerto Rico
 * Saba
 * Saint-Barthélemy
 * Saint Martin an almost unique example of a nation at peace with itself for many centuries despite sharing two (at least - the British occupied it several times, too!) imperial masters (France and the Netherlands)
 * Saint Kitts and Nevis
 * Saint Lucia
 * Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
 * Sint Eustatius
 * Trinidad and Tobago
 * Turks and Caicos Islands

Island nations of the Indian Ocean

 * Andaman and Nicobar
 * Chagos Archipelago
 * Comoros
 * Lakshadweep
 * Madagascar
 * Maldives
 * Mauritius
 * Mayotte
 * Myeik Kyunzu
 * Reunion
 * Seychelles
 * Socotra
 * Sri Lanka
 * Zanzibar

Island nations of the South Pacific
Many of these island nations are in Oceania:
 * Cook Islands
 * Federated States of Micronesia
 * Fiji
 * Futuna
 * Gambier Islands
 * Guam
 * Kiribati
 * Marquesas
 * Marshall Islands
 * Nauru
 * New Caledonia
 * New Zealand
 * Niue
 * Palau
 * Pitcairn Islands
 * Samoa - artificially split into US administered American Samoa and Samoa
 * Solomon Islands
 * Tokelau
 * Rapa Nui
 * Tonga
 * Tuvalu
 * ʻUvea
 * Vanuatu

Island nations of the North Pacific

 * Hawaiʻi
 * Japan
 * The Philippines
 * Singapore
 * Taiwan

Pays insulaires 島国