Island

An island or isle is any piece of subcontinental land that is surrounded by water.[1] Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. Sedimentary islands in the Ganges delta are called chars. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands, such as the Philippines, is referred to as an archipelago.

For other uses, see Island (disambiguation).

Ireland (left) and Great Britain (right), are large islands of north-west Europe
A small island in Lower Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, New York state, U.S.
A view of the Utö Island at the Archipelago Sea in Pargas, Finland
Bangchuidao Island is an islet composed mostly of rock, in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.
The islands of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, are the visible parts of submerged mountains.

An island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge; examples are Singapore and its causeway, and the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. Some places may even retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after being connected to a larger landmass by a land bridge or landfill, such as Coney Island and Coronado Island, though these are, strictly speaking, tied islands. Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal, more or less the entirety of Fennoscandia by the White Sea Canal, or Marble Hill in northern Manhattan during the time between the building of the United States Ship Canal and the filling-in of the Harlem River which surrounded the area, it is generally not considered an island.

There are two main types of islands in the sea: continental and oceanic. There are also artificial islands, which are man-made.