An island is a piece of land with water all around it.
There are islands in oceans.
There are islands in rivers and lakes.
Some islands have been made by people.
Islands in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam . Image © iStock
An island is a piece of land completely surrounded by water. There are islands in every ocean and sea. Very small islands can be called islets, or cays (say keys)
There are islands in rivers and in lakes. An island in a river or an island in a lake may be called an eyot.
There are two main kinds of islands: continental and oceanic
Continental islands
Tasmania is a continental island : high ground that rises from Australia’s continental shelf. ©Getty
Continental islands are bodies of high ground that rise above the sea level of the continental shelf of a continent.
A continental shelf is the land that extends outwards from the continent and is covered by shallow seas.
Greenland and Tasmania, the island state of Australia, are examples of continental islands.
Oceanic islands
Oceanic islands are not on the continental shelf. They are active or extinct volcanoes that rise above sea level from the ocean floor.
Iceland and Tonga are examples of oceanic islands.
Watch a video here showing how a volcanic island is formed
There are a few oceanic islands that are not volcanic - they are tectonic. This happens where plate movements have lifted up the deep ocean floor to above the surface. Macquarie Island in the Pacific is an example of an island formed by movement of tectonic plates.
The largest islands
The six largest islands on Earth are: Greenland (the biggest), New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin Island and Sumatra.
Look at a map to see the location of the largest islands in the world.
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/newart/locator/majorisl.htm
The unique biodiversity of some islands
The island of Borneo, a continental island, is shared by two nations: Malaysia and Indonesia
Because islands are cut off from other landmasses, they are often the home of unique plants and animals.
Borneo and Madagascar for example, have hundreds of plants and animals that are found nowhere else on Earth.
Islands are home to many rare animal species such as proboscis monkeys on Borneo ©Getty Images
Proboscis monkeys are found only on the island of Borneo, and lemurs are found only on the island of Madagascar.
This lemur is one of many sepcies of lemur that live on Madagascar. Image ©kidcyber
Read the kidcyber pages:
Atolls
An atoll is a ring shaped island made out of coral that has a lagoon of water inside it. An atoll needs coral reef so they are found mainly in tropical waters. Most are in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
A large reef and lagoon in the Maldives. © iStock
Atolls can be quite small or be large like Kwajalein in the Marshal Islands which is 130 kilometres long and 32 kilometres wide. The reef and lagoon area in some of the atolls of the Maldives are larger than 3000 square kilometres.
Archipelago
An archipelago is a group of islands in the same part of the sea. Indonesia and The Philippines are archipelagos.
Indonesia is an archipelago made up of thousands of islands iStock
Deserted, or desert, islands
A desert island is one where no one lives- it is deserted. Coral Sea Islands off the northeastern coast of Australia are an example of desert islands.
It’s a good idea to get information from more than one source!
Read more about islands, and which are the biggest islands
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/island
https://www.ducksters.com/geography/islands.php
Read about the Galapagos Islands, an archipelago teeming with unique species
https://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/earth/galapagosislands.html
Watch a video about Madagascar, another island with unique species
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtfp27g2_mk
Watch a video about New Zealand, a nation of two main islands
©Getty