Talk:List of island countries

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of island countries article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3

This article is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Geography List‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Geography, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of geography on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GeographyWikipedia:WikiProject GeographyTemplate:WikiProject Geographygeography articles

List This article has been rated as List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

WikiProject Geography To-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : See Requested articles/Social sciences/Geography, cities, regions and named places and Missing articles about Locations
Assess : Tag related article talk pages with {{WikiProject Geography}}. To help assess the quality and importance of geography articles, please see: Unassessed geography articles and Unknown-importance geography articles.
Cleanup : See Geography articles needing attention
Deletion sorting : Listed at Geographic related deletion discussions
Geographical coordinates : See Articles missing geocoordinate data by country
Infobox : See Geography articles needing infoboxes
Map : See Wikipedia requested maps
Notability : See Geography articles with topics of unclear notability
Photo : See Wikipedia requested photographs of places
Stubs : See Geography stubs

Islands List‑class

	Islands portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islands, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of islands on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IslandsWikipedia:WikiProject IslandsTemplate:WikiProject IslandsIslands articles
List	This article has been rated as List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Countries List‑class

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of countries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry articles

List

This article has been rated as List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

WikiProject Countries to-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Check out the article alerts; see if anything catches your fancy.
Cleanup : clean-up listing for Countries
Stubs : de-stub articles in Category:Stubs by region.
Other : add {{WPCountries}} to talk pages of related articles, and assess.

Lists List‑class

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList articles
List	This article has been rated as List-class on the project's quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

"List of borderless country" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect List of borderless country. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 30#List of borderless country until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Matthew hk (talk) 11:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need to maintain a List of borderless countries. Except Australia, all continental countries share at least one land border with another country. In total, there are 40 borderless countries (including Northern Cyprus) in the world (land border only). Other than Australia, all 39 other borderless countries are island countries. 120.16.171.146 (talk) 02:47, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Flag of Réunion (Local).png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:09, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Australia

Australia is not just "often referred to as" (= weasel words). It really is an island. If Greenland is an island, why is not Australia?

Australia has its own continental shelf. Greenland is part of the North American continental shelf. End of discussion. Ddum5347 (talk) 22:56, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Same thoughts exactly. Def of an island is a territory surrounded by water regardless of how big or how small; Australia is an island the same as Africa is almost an island of not for the Sinai which locks with Israel that made it not being an island Nlivataye (talk) 16:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Huge continental mainlands are generally not considered to be islands. Greenland is generally considered the largest island in the world and Australia is generally considered the smallest continent in the world. Australia is not a true island country but it deserves a honourable mention. 2001:8003:9008:1301:501E:2EC1:45D6:B919 (talk) 00:28, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We follow sources. Most sources recognise Australia as a continent - it has it's own continental plate - that is why there is an article about the Australia (continent). Some sources also call it an island but it's not 'really' an island but one that has been defined as both with a preponderance of sources calling it a continent. It is nonsense to say Australia is an island because of being surrounded by water because Africa is almost an island - this type of argument merely confuses the issue and there are no sources that say Africa is an island anyway. Robynthehode (talk) 12:53, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If mainland Australia is an island, then Afro-Eurasia, the Americas, and Antarctica are also islands. Greenland would become the world's fifth-largest island.

I think you have confused landmass with continent and island. 120.16.171.146 (talk) 02:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Denmark

I think there is a problem with the definition of the term island country. Does an island country have to have 100% of its territory on islands? If so, why is the United Kingdom considered to be an island country? Gibraltar, however small it might be, is a continental territory on the Iberian Peninsula which is administered by the United Kingdom.

If the United Kingdom can be classified as an island country, then the Kingdom of Denmark (including the Faroe Islands and Greenland) should be classified as an island country too. Over half of the Danish population live on the islands, the capital city Copenhagen is also located on an island. The Jutland Peninsula is the only continental part of the Danish Kingdom but it only makes up less than 1 percent of the Kingdom’s land.

For consistency purposes, I reckon we should either include both the UK and Denmark in the list or exclude both of them. 2001:8003:9008:1301:10C6:CA0D:C6F:5069 (talk) 12:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@2001:8003:9008:1301:10C6:CA0D:C6F:5069: Before defining whether the UK itself as an island country, a basic cognition you should know is that, as of now, the British Overseas Territories are not considered as parts of the United Kingdom in strict legal sense,[1][2][3][4] this concept has also been explained in the citing annotation to the UK. LVTW2 (talk) 23:56, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't buy into all that "not an integral part of the country" stuff. It doesn't matter what kind of wording is used, if a territory is not independent and it is under the sovereignty of another country, then it is technically a part of that country. Otherwise, it should be treated as an independent country. Some classical examples of an independent country are: Taiwan, Palestine, Kosovo, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Some classical examples of a dependent territory are: Gibraltar, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and Hong Kong.

The fact is that the UK does have a small piece of land on the European continent, so the inclusion criteria for this article needs to be clarified. Otherwise, the inclusion of the United Kingdom and the exclusion of the Kingdom of Denmark is controversial.

A discussion is needed. 120.16.171.146 (talk) 03:16, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]