An island is a land mass which is smaller than a continent and surrounded by water. Island nations are, therefore, autonomous and sovereign countries whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands.
As of latest data, approximately the quarter (24%) of all 193 UN member countries lies on islands. Another fun fact that is interesting to note is that during the recorded modern history, island nations showed the tendency towards higher political stability, than their continental counterparts.
Typically, island countries are small. However, there are exceptions, such as Indonesia and Japan.
Island Nations
Photo: Beach sunset on a remote island / The Art of Travel Partners
Island nations come in many shapes and varieties. Many island countries are actually archipelagos (a collective group of several smaller islands), such as Micronesia and the Philippines (which consists of thousands of islands).
Others island nation can just be a single island, such as Nauru, or even part of a bigger island, such as Haiti.
For whatever weird reasons, Australia was also once considered an “island”, although nowadays it is correctly referred to as a continent.
List of Island Countries
Photo: Most of the earth is covered by Oceans and there are almost two thousands islands / CC0
Click on any of the hyperlinks below to read the detailed Travel Guide for any of the below-mentioned island countries.
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Barbados
- Brunei
- Cape Verde
- Comoros
- Cuba
- Cyprus
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- East Timor
- Federated States of Micronesia
- Fiji
- Grenada
- Haiti
- Iceland
- Indonesia
- Republic of Ireland
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Kiribati
- Madagascar
- Maldives
- Malta
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Samoa
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Seychelles
- Singapore
- Solomon Islands
- Sri Lanka
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tuvalu
- United Kingdom
- Vanuatu
Dependent Islands
Photo: Faroe Islands / The Art of Travel Partners
The below is a list of all the dependent islands. These islands are not sovereign or independent countries but dependencies of other sovereign countries.
- Aruba
- Bonaire
- Curaçao
- Hawaii
- Puerto Rico
- American Samoa
- Guam
- U.S. Virgin Islands
- British Virgin Islands
- Bermuda
- Taiwan
- Greenland
- Akrotiri and Dhekelia
- Aland
- Alderney
- Anguilla
- Caribbean Netherlands
- Cayman Islands
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Cook Islands
- Easter Island
- Falkland Islands
- Faroe Islands
- French Polynesia
- Guadeloupe
- Guernsey
- The Isle of Man
- Jersey
- Martinique
- Mayotte
- Montserrat
- Navassa Island
- New Caledonia
- Norfolk Island
- Northern Cyprus
- Northern Mariana Islands
- Pitcairn Islands
- Réunion
- One Saint Barthélemy
- Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Sint Maarten
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Svalbard
- Tokelau
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- Wallis and Futuna
Island Countries with man-made artificial links to a Continent
Photo: A causeway over the ocean / The Art of Travel Partners
- Bahrain to Middle East peninsula via a causeway
- Singapore to Asia via a causeway
- United Kingdom to Europe via a tunnel
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