An unnamed isle in Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the leading contender for this island superlative.
Published Feb 22, 2015
Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, is located along the coastline of Queensland, Australia, and it includes Great Sandy National Park. The island was designated a World Heritage site in 1992, in part due to its outstanding preservation of geological processes related to sand dune formation.
Published Oct 13, 2008
An archipelago in northern Lake Michigan has little in the way of human settlement. However, offshore ridges offer ideal breeding ground for trout.
Published Aug 25, 2013
The most interesting geology lies just offshore and below the water line of this Northwest Australian island.
Published Aug 3, 2015
On September 25, 2002, astronauts aboard the International Space Station viewed Easter Island, one of the most remote locations on Earth. Easter Island is more than 2000 miles from the closest populations on Tahiti and Chile—even more remote than astronauts orbiting at 210 nautical miles above the Earth. Archaeologists believe the island was discovered and colonized by Polynesians at about 400 AD. Subsequently, a unique culture developed. The human population grew to levels that could not be sustained by the island. A civil war resulted, and the island’s deforestation and ecosystem collapse was nearly complete.
Published Oct 6, 2002
Once named San Salvador, the island may be where Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas.
Published Mar 21, 2011
Southwesterly winds pull strands of land-fast ice out into the lake from Washington Island and Detroit Island.
Published Mar 10, 2014
The usually dry, inland lake in Australia came alive with color after flood waters arrived in the late summer of 2017.
Published Feb 27, 2017
Despite sporadic rainfall, the island is the occasional home of two of the larger bodies of water in Hawaii.
Published Apr 5, 2020
Marsh Island, located along the southwestern coastline of Louisiana, is a remnant of an abandoned lobe of the Mississippi River Delta formed approximately 5,000–7,500 years ago. It is composed primarily of organic-rich muds and brackish marsh vegetation, but some peat (layers of vegetation that have partially decomposed while submerged in water) is also present.
Published Dec 3, 2007
Intensive sand mining has dramatically changed the northern branch of China’s largest freshwater lake.
Published Mar 18, 2016
Named Isla de Aves in Spanish, (meaning “Island of the Birds”) Aves Island lies west of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. It provides a nesting site to green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) and, of course, birds. Because the abundant bird droppings, known as guano, could be used in fertilizer and gunpowder, guano miners worked on the island until they depleted the supply. Since its discovery by Europeans, likely in the late 16th century, Aves Island was subsequently claimed by several European nations. The island is currently claimed by Venezuela, although disputes about ownership of the island, and the surrounding exclusive economic zone in the Caribbean, continue today.
Published Jun 19, 2006
