10)Island of Marajo
The Island of Marajo is located in the mouth of the Amazon River in Brazil. It is cradled by two rivers, the Amazon and the Tocantins, and the Atlantic Ocean.
The island is known for the pororoca, a tidal bore phenomenon in the river that creates large waves reaching four meters in height. It has the distinction of being the second-largest among all islands in South America.
The most startling aspect of a visit to Marajo Island is the presence of water buffaloes. These enormous but docile land animals are not native to Brazil or anywhere in South America.
There are today about 450.000 water buffaloes on an island the size of Switzerland. Another interesting feature of this tropical paradise is that it is located almost directly on the equator.
9)Kwajalein - Historical island
Kwajalein forms a part of the Marshall Islands, which lie midway between Hawaii and Australia. Kwajalein is one of the largest atolls in the world. Its 97 islands surround an immense 2174 square kilometers of water. The total land area is just over 16 square kilometers.
This beautiful atoll was discovered by a Spanish expedition led by Ruy López de Villalobos in January 1543. Kwajalein is a US military base, and its inhabitants are mostly Americans. Kwajalein's strategic location made it one of the targets for the Allied Forces during World War II.
In late January 1944, A combined force of US Marine and Army troops launched an amphibious assault on three islets in the atoll and captured Kwajalein from the Japanese. The wrecks of ships and air crafts from this battle can still be seen in the lagoon to this day.
8)Bananal Island - Second largest fluvial Island
Banana Island is a large river island in Brazil. It is located at a fork formed by two sections of the Araguaia River. It is the second-largest fluvial island in the world- a fluvial island is a piece of land surrounded by streams or natural waterways.
Banana Island is also the largest fluvial island without an ocean coastline. This island is only 56 kilometers wide and the home of indigenous people. It has a variety of palms, tropical birds, and freshwater fish.
Banana Island is a nature and cultural preserve. There are no bridges to the island from the mainland. The only way to reach it is by boat. In the north of Bananal lies the vast Araguaia National Park, and in the south, there are two Red Indian reservations.
7)Samosir Island- An Island within an Island
Samosir Island has the distinction of being the largest island within an island. It is a volcanic island in Lake Toba, which is a lake on the island of Sumatra.
The island was born as a result of two dramatic prehistoric volcanic events. A gigantic volcanic explosion first created a huge crater that became Lake Toba. It was actually a peninsula jutting into the lake. Samosir was formed by a new volcano cone pushing up through the existing Lake Toba volcanic crater.
But in 1906, the Dutch dug a canal across the connecting strip of land, and Samosir became an island. Samosir is about the size of Singapore and is the heart of the culture of the Toba tribes of North Sumatra.
6)Manitoulin - World's largest freshwater Island
Manitoulin, the World's largest freshwater island, is a source of unending wonder. It has more lakes on it, 110 to be precise. This is more than any other island on Earth.
Some of these lakes have their own islands, and many of these islands have their own ponds! In the heart of Manitoulin Island lies Lake Mindemoya, which has an island called Treasure Island.
Manitoulin Island is named for an underwater cave where a powerful spirit was believed to have lived.
5)Devon Island - Mars land
Canada's Devon Island is the 27th largest island in the world. It was discovered by Robert Bylot and William Baffin in 1616.
What makes it special is that it is also the largest uninhabited island on the planet. As a result of its forbidding climate and terrain, not a single person lives on the island year-round. Devon Island contains several small mountain ranges. But, the climate and the terrain are so inhospitable that even animals are very few in number.
Scientists say that Devon Island has a surface similar to that of the Red Planet, Mars. Its terrain has been carved by many small valley networks that bear an uncanny resemblance, including in their bizarreness, to those on the Red Planet.
So, a visit to Devon Island will give you a glimpse of what the surface of Mars will look like!
4)Java - Bird Watcher's Paradise
The Indonesian island of Java is the most thickly populated in the world. Practically lying on the equator, it is home to 57 percent of the Indonesian population and was the center for Hindu-Buddhist empires.
Java was formed mainly by volcanic eruptions and had an east-west chain of volcanoes. During the colonial periods of the 17th century, the Dutch introduced the cultivation of commercial plants in Java, including sugar cane, rubber, tea, and coffee. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Javanese coffee gained global popularity.
This is, in fact, why the name 'Java' is commonly considered to be synonymous with coffee. With more than 450 different bird species, Java is also a birdwatcher's paradise.
3)Bishop Rock - World's Smallest Island
Bishop Rock is a small rocky ledge jutting out of the sea. It is famous for its lighthouse. Bishop Rock lies west of the Isles of Scilly in Cornwall.
The rock rises from a depth of 45 meters to expose the ledge, which is 46 meters long by 16 meters wide. This makes Bishop Rock the world's smallest island with a building on it.
The lighthouse was built because the rocks around the Scilly Isles were the cause of many shipwrecks. However, building it was a dangerous task because the sea was rough and the island was too small.
After seven years of labor, the lighthouse was finally completed in 1858. In the old days, the 49-meter lighthouse had to rely on paraffin vapor lamps and, before that, candles.
Today, there are generators and batteries and a helipad that was built in 1976. Though the lighthouse is no longer operational, it has ten floors, and up to four visitors can stay here for a week to three weeks.
2)Mindemoya Island - Real Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson had created an imaginary island called Treasure Island for his adventure story about pirates and hidden gold. However, there is a real island of the same name in Canada.
The real Treasure Island lies in Lake Mindemoya, a lake on the island of Manitoulin. in turn, it is an island in Canada's Lake Huron. It is the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake.
Treasure Island was originally called Mindemoya Island because of its shape. It rises at one end and levels to a long flat hill that ends in a steep short drop.
There is an interesting story behind this name. According to local legend, "A great chieftain had a nagging wife who annoyed him so much. One day he kicked her and sent her flying. She landed on her hands and knees in Lake Minde moya, leaving her back above the water to form the island".
In fact, the word 'mindemoya' means old woman.
1)Bou vet Island - World's Most Remote Island
The world's most remote island lies in the South Atlantic. It is Bou vet Island. One of the most forbidding places on Earth. It is located 1700 km north of Antarctica, which is the nearest landmass.
The island lies in the middle of freezing vastness, like a speck of ice. Around Bouvet Island, it is possible to draw a circle of one thousand and six hundred kilometers radius -having an area of 8148102.6 square kilometers, or very nearly that of Europe-which contains no other land whatever.
Bouvet Island is named after the earliest polar explorer, Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, who discovered it in 1739. This lonely island remains uninhabited, though officially, it is a dependency on Norway. The island is covered by a glacier, an inactive, ice-filled volcano in the center. Heavy seas and the absence of any coves or inlets make it too dangerous to approach Bouvet Island by boat in any but the calmest weather.
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