One out of every ten people on the planet is an islander: more than 600 million people live on about 9,000 inhabited islands.
Australia is normally considered to be the largest island in the world. But there are compelling scientific arguments for regarding it as a continent. Certainly, opinion in Oz is divided. The only consensus there is that Australia is either the world's largest island or the world's smallest continent.
Understudying as the world's largest island, evidently, is Greenland, population 40,000.
Although, it could be argued that Antarctica is an island and not a continent. This would push Australia back into second place...
Bishop Rock, in the Isles of Scilly off south-west England, is sometimes called the world's smallest island. But this is an unwarranted claim based on an arbitrary 19th century bureaucratic classification scheme. It is impossible to determine the world's smallest island.
Under certain conditions, one definition of an island is a 'fairly permanent' piece of land with substantial vegetation. This test can be met by an islet of less than 100 square feet.
Australia is normally considered to be the largest island in the world. But there are compelling scientific arguments for regarding it as a continent. Certainly, opinion in Oz is divided. The only consensus there is that Australia is either the world's largest island or the world's smallest continent.
Understudying as the world's largest island, evidently, is Greenland, population 40,000.
Although, it could be argued that Antarctica is an island and not a continent. This would push Australia back into second place...
Bishop Rock, in the Isles of Scilly off south-west England, is sometimes called the world's smallest island. But this is an unwarranted claim based on an arbitrary 19th century bureaucratic classification scheme. It is impossible to determine the world's smallest island.
Under certain conditions, one definition of an island is a 'fairly permanent' piece of land with substantial vegetation. This test can be met by an islet of less than 100 square feet.
