Island and Location

square miles

(square km)

Map

1. Greenland

(North America). Located in the North Atlantic Ocean.

The largest island in the world, but the least populated country in the world (it is 80% covered by ice).

Though Greenland is still politically considered part of Denmark, people are mainly indigenous to the Arctic region. Greenlandic is an Eskimo-Aleut language spoken by the Greenlandic Inuit people in Greenland.

822,700

(2,130,800)

2. New Guinea

Located in the western Pacific Ocean. New Guinea is a part of the same tectonic plate as Australia.

The island is divided among two countries: Papua New Guinea to the east, and Indonesia to the west.

Scientists say humans inhabited the island as far back as 50,000 BC. New Guinea now has around a thousand different tribal groups and separate languages, which makes New Guinea the most linguistically diverse area in the world.

309,000

(800,000)

3. Borneo

(Asia). Located in the South China Sea.

One of the largest islands in the world, about 3/4 of the island is Indonesia, with the rest divided between Malaysia and Brunei.

Borneo is itself home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world, around 140 million years old. This rainforest is one of the few remaining natural habitats for the very endangered Bornean orangutan.

280,100

(725,500)

4. Madagascar

(Africa). Located in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa.

Madagascar split from the Indian peninsula around 88 million years ago, allowing native plants and animal species to evolve that do not exist anywhere else on the planet.

Over 90% of this diversity hotspot’s wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth.

226,658

(578,041)

5. Baffin Island

(North America). Located in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Straddling the Arctic Circle, Baffin Island has a coastal tundra that is home to abundant arctic wildlife.

This Canadian island has been continuously inhabited by Inuit peoples for thousands of years.

195,928

(507,451)

6. Sumatra

(Asia). Located in the Indian Ocean.

Sumatra is part of Indonesia, and forms part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

Sumatra has a huge variety of plant and animal species but is losing large portions of its tropical rainforest due to deforestation to make way for palm oil plantations.

164,000

(425,000)

7. Honshu

(Asia). Located between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west).

The most populous island of Japan, the Greater Toyko Area, plus Kyoto and Osaka are all on Honshu.

The highest peak is the active volcano Mount Fuji, and Honshu also has frequent earthquakes.

87,805

(227,414)

8. Victoria Island

(North America). Located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Victoria Island is a frozen tundra with peninsulas and inlets. The population of the whole island is around 1800, and the people are mainly Inuit.

83,896

(217,291)

9. Great Britain

(Europe). Located in the North Atlantic.

Great Britain lies on the European continental shelf. It is part of the British Isles archipelago (with over 1,000 nearby, smaller islands, and the island of Ireland). The physical island of Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and Wales.

Britain Island used to be a peninsula, but when the ice age glaciers melted and sea levels rose, it became one of the largest islands in the world.

83,698

(216,777)

10. Ellesmere Island

(North America). Located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The Arctic Cordillera (mountains) cover a lot of Ellesmere Island, making it the most mountainous in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. In addition to mountains, there are fjords, a lake, and a massive ice shelf that is breaking up and melting.

75,767

(196,236)