Talk:List of islands of the United States by area

A fact from List of islands of the United States by area appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 29 October 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that only three of the largest islands of the United States – the Big Island of Hawaii, Kodiak Island, and Puerto Rico – are greater than 3,000 square miles (8,000 km²) in size?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/October.

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Padre Island

I tried to add this to the list based on Handbook of Texas information, but now I'm not sure it's right. Should Padre Island and South Padre Island be treated as seperate entities or one island? There appears to be a channel through the island at Port Masfield, and Google Maps seperates them into two islands at that point. The city of South Padre Island also appears to treat the two seperately; the Handbook of Texas, however, seems to treat them jointly, and that may be the area for both. Any help welcomed.--12.47.123.121 02:09, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. If I had to guess, I would say that the Handbook of Texas is treating the two islands as one. Encyclopædia Britannica's entry on the island describes [1] it as being 113 miles (182 km) long and having an area of 203 square miles (526 square km). --Kralizec! (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the entry for South Padre Island. If the presence of the Port Mansfield channel is considered to divide the original island into two islands which should both be considered then there should be entries for both South Padre Island and another "North Padre Island," but none for Padre Island. Otherwise a single entry for Padre Island is correct. In no case can we have Padre Island and South Padre Island in the same list. See "Counting Canals Or Not" discussion for my thoughts on why I chose the latter of the valid options. Oelrich (talk) 15:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whidbey Island

Interesting article. FYI, I noticed that Whidbey Island is listed twice. Zagalejo^^^ 07:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for catching the mistake! Not sure how it happened. I removed the duplicate entry from both this article and List of islands by area. --Kralizec! (talk) 14:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We were taught in high school (on Whidbey Island) that Whidbey Island is the largest Island in the continental united states, because all others of equal or greater size on the continent were actually peninsula's and not islands. Please verify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.78.109.233 (talk) 13:02, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Long Island.

Why is Long Island, NY not on the list? It's over 3,000 sq.miles. This is urgent because the fact in the Did You Know on the main page is wrong. SteveBaker 16:27, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. Both this article and List of islands by area have Long Island at 1,401 square miles, however the Long Island article itself states 3,567 square miles. Let me see if I can dig up some references for either number. --Kralizec! (talk) 17:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would appear that the Long Island article has the wrong area listed. Encyclopædia Britannica states [2] that Long Island, "is 118 mi (190 km) long, 12–23 mi (19–37 km) wide, and has an area of 1,401 sq mi (3,629 sq km)." Using this information, I updated both articles with a WP:CITET to EB. --Kralizec! (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Long Island is a peninsula and not an Island, as are several "islands" you have listed in the largest island category. It is attached to the land by a sand bar that was dug out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.78.109.233 (talk) 13:00, 5 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Counting Canals Or Not

But some places clearly DO count canals, or Zug Island wouldn't be called an island. It is not the only example in the world; many such cases exist. So it is fair to point out that some things that could reasonably be considered islands by virtue of being completely surrounded by water aren't in the list. The point about the entire eastern US being considered an island if canals count is also legitimate, I readily grant, except for possibly its size (I don't know if it is greater than the size of Australia, which is frequently cited as the world's largest island).

I would like to discuss this more rather than just getting in an edit war, but right now my bias is to restore the comment I had originally put in because it doesn't even change the list as-is. The most basic point is that "island" is a poorly defined term and therefor it is entirely reasonable to include a mention of what types of masses that could be considered islands under common definitions (check Merriam-Webster and WordNet, both of which only have two criteria: surrounded by water, and size) have not made the list. And the main reason that things like Cape Cod, Delmarva, New England / New Brunswick / Nova Scotia are not considered islands appears to be mere convention and perception, not rigorous defintion of what is an island. Vttale 15:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keeping the principle of least astonishment in mind, why needlessly complicate the article by including artificial "islands" that were created by the construction of canals? Considering that the article on Delmarva is named Delmarva Peninsula and the Cape Cod article's lead sentence states it "is an arm-shaped peninsula," adding these would just confuse users. Additionally as the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, Erie Canal / Oswego Canal, etc. split the county into a veritable patchwork of "islands," this issue becomes a case study of reductio ad absurdum. --Kralizec! (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is important to point out these things because the very term "island" is poorly defined, with no rigorous standard. Therefore the article SHOULD point out that it is somewhat selective in only including land masses that are traditionally thought of as islands because of their history and not how the term might be reasonably applied to them in the present. Both Cape Code and Delmarva are called cape and peninsula, respectively, because of their status before any human action caused them to be transformed, but human action is not an inherent disqualifier for whether a land feature has become an island or not or several other modern day features call islands would not be called such. Nor is width of waterway or depth, or again other features (including some on the list) would also be disqualified. Vttale (talk) 22:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I went ahead and added a note back in to the lead paragraph. Thank you for taking the time to help me understand your perspective on this issue! --Kralizec! (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good point with reference to some of the putative islands, but not others. Although standard definitions of "island" do not state it overtly, surely an additional assumed criterion (beyond being surrounded by water and size) is that the surface of the water surrounding the island candidate must be at the same elevation all 'round. This clearly disqualifies entities like "the entire eastern US." Cape Cod, Delmarva, the Peloponnese, and some others remain candidates, but my personal preference is that man-made islands not be included in lists like this one. As a corollary, natural islands divided by human intervention should continue to be considered single (see Padre Island discussion). Oelrich (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At current writing, there is both a comment on the page that this list does not consider man-made islands, while simultaneously listing Cape Cod. Being a resident of a larger "Island" than Cape Cod, albeit man-made (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Island), I would appreciate some consistency. Either remove Cape Cod, or remove the caveat regarding man-made islands and include Copper Island please. Honestly I prefer the former. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.104.67.222 (talk) 17:58, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just removed Cape Cod. I think this above discussion comes to a sensible point of consensus: that very large islands formed by canals don't count as islands except, perhaps, in an extrememely pedantic sense. Given that, I don't think Copper Island qualified for this page. Fitnr 23:21, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dauphin Island

Visual map inspection causes me to question the inclusion of Dauphin Island, AL in this list. I think the person who added it to the list may have confused the area of the town with the area of the physical island, but this isn't clear. So far, however, I've been unable to find a good resource for the size of the island. I considered using census data, but this can be pretty labor-intensive for heavily-populated areas. Does anyone have a good source? Oelrich (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Oelrich (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, after 12 years, finally got back to this and found the needed info -- in Wikipedia's own "Dauphin Island" article.Oelrich (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Puerto Rico

The information given for Puerto Rico consists of data for the entire territory comprising the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which includes not only the Island of Puerto Rico but also other islands in the archipelago (the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra and Mona). It should also be noted that the section of San Juan known as Old San Juan is located on a separate island (La Isleta de San Juan---see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_San_Juan). This means that the Island of Puerto Rico is probably closer to 3,300 square miles, not 3,435 square miles, and its population is quite a bit lower than the 3,808,610 that the 2000 Census found for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Vieques and Culebra combined for like 11,000 residents, and Old San Juan probably has over 50,000 people). I have added the island of Vieques as a separate island on the list (it is approximately 51 square miles), but have decided not to reduce the area and population given for the Island of Puerto Rico until (i) other people agree with me that the facts given should pertain to the island itself, not the entire archipelago and (ii) someone can figure out what the island's true area and population are. I would appreciate any thought, comments and/or assistance. AuH2ORepublican (talk) 00:24, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is certainly true. But where would be a figure where all small and very small islands are not included?

And other thing, the conversions are wrong. 9104 km² is 3515 mi² (and 3435 mi² is 8896.6 km²). So it probably should be 3515 if it is left at 9104, which I don't support because of the above. 82.141.125.215 (talk) 03:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Saint John

I know it's just under the cutoff, but I think Saint John (USVI) is significant enough to include —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.81.197.249 (talk) 18:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia

There reads Georgia (U.S. State). However, in this list the whole article name is not needed (just Georgia is enough). I was going change it with putting a | there, but it is already used with state flags. Can it be done? 82.141.72.135 (talk) 09:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Twenty

Many readers are young people, and have no basis to understand the jump from 22 sq mi to 9 sq mi represents a gap in the data. So I broke it into two sections to emphasize that gap. Nick Beeson (talk) 12:35, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Alameda not a natural island

Acccording to its article (and well-documented local history), the California island of Alameda "... was created by the dredging of a shipping canal...", and is therefore disqualified by this article's exclusion of "[m]ainland areas cut by man-made canals ...", but as there seems to be some controversy about that exclusion (see "Counting Canals Or Not" above), I will leave it to someone else to Be Bold and remove Alameda from the list if appropriate. 66.81.245.48 (talk) 19:38, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Jamestown Island rhode island, 35.33 Sq MI

Jamestown Island Rhode Island 35.33 Sq mi 96.233.147.75 (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Marco Island, Florida

Need to add Marco Island, Florida (area is 24.66 sq mi or 63.88 km2)? Nala99999 (talk) 18:52, 12 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]