| in this one I thought I would take a look at a list of the world's largest islands now the first one that jumps to mind is Australia however Australia is technically considered a continent the same thing happens with Antarctica these are considered continental land masses rather than Islands so we can't consider them for this list any more than we would consider Africa being an island because of this the largest island in the world is technically Greenland at around 2 million square kilometers the Danish autonomous country tops this list it's a part of the continent of North America but it has always been more associated with Europe more specifically Denmark and Norway because of colonialism most of its inhabitants are of emmitt origin the native people of that land who migrated there from Canada in the 13th century it is the only place in the world other than Antarctica which has a permanent Ice Sheet it's also the least densely populated territory in the world and most of its people live in the capital of nuke an interesting fact about it is that it holds one of the highest shares of renewable energy in the world at a great 70% in second place comes New Guinea with 785 thousand square kilometres off the coast of Australia and part of the archipelago of Indonesia it's divided between the independent state of Papua New Guinea in the east and western New Guinea ruled by Indonesia in the West it has been inhabited by humans for over 40,000 years and over 700 idioms are spoken there during colonial times it was ruled by the Spanish the Germans the British and then the Australians it is one of the least explored territories in the world because of its dense rainforest and several undiscovered species are projected to still exist there it's very well in the eastern part of the island only 18 percent of people live in urban centers and the roads are very limited next Borneo at 748 thousand square kilometers part of the great Sunda Islands archipelago it's divided politically between Malaysia Brunei and Indonesia these days it is also home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world with an estimated age of around 140 million years it's therefore the center of the evolution and distribution of many plants and animals that we know there's over 15,000 species of plants 3,000 of trees 221 kinds of mammals 420 types of birds and over 400 types of fish species as well cave paintings date back around 50 thousand years so we can assume it has been populated by humans for a long time as well before its current political status it was ruled by natives and then the British the Dutch and the Japanese for the next one we go to the African coast Madagascar at five hundred and eighty seven thousand square kilometers it's the world's fourth largest island today it is its own independent nation despite being closer to the African continent today it actually split from the Indian Peninsula about 88 million years ago its early creation as an island makes it so that its biodiversity is highly exclusive to their land over 90 percent of its wildlife is found nowhere else on a planet human settlement took place between 350 BC and 550 ad by people who arrived on canoes from Borneo the island we saw before this imagining the travelling time that must have taken them on canoes and then other native populations joined them from africa for most of its history it was ruled by a ton of tribes and then they united into the kingdom of madagascar after a brief period of French colonial rule they became and again as they are today in fifth place we have Baffin an island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut with just over 500,000 square kilometers it is named after the British explorer William Baffin and I'm mispronouncing the name I'm sure but it is projected that it had been previously discovered by Norse explorers from Greenland and Iceland like these two it was inhabited by native in with people some researchers however found evidence of contact with European cultures from around the Year 1000 leading us to believe that it really must have been the Nordic people that had some type of early contact with them today it's a part of Canada and has close to 11,000 people 72% of which are still of Inuit origin moving back to Asia Sumatra an island in the Sunda archipelago with just over four hundred and seventy-three thousand square kilometres being the home to over 50 million people it is ruled and a part of Indonesia the equator line crosses the island at its centre it's a tropical island and years ago its large rainforest took up all of the island however deforestation has taken place recently with more human activity on the island other than the destruction of nature this deforestation has also had political consequences creating a serious seasonal smoke haze over neighboring countries which contributed to tensions between Indonesia Malaysia and Singapore in 2013 about 50% of its forest has been lost in the last 35 years and because of that a lot of its species are in risk of disappearing like the Sumatran tiger or elephant in ancient times it was known as the island of gold it then became the kingdom of assay and Samudra which means gathering of waters eventually European powers used similar names for the entire island creating the name of Sumatra in seventh place Honshu Honshu is the largest island of the Japanese archipelago with almost two hundred and twenty-eight thousand square kilometers it's also the second most populous island in the world with 104 million people only behind Java in Indonesia 25 percent of this population lives in the greater Tokyo area the Japanese mega capital also housing the Sai heyyo belt in its south joining many Japanese cities and containing a lot of its industry it includes many of Japan's former capitals as well like Kyoto Kamakura or nara taking up 60% of Japan's total area and being slightly larger than Great Britain they have tried to increase the island size with land reclamation techniques but see rising levels as a consequence of global warming has made the effects of this not very visible it's a volcanic region and the active volcano Mount Fuji makes it the world's seventh highest island inside Japan it is the main source of tea and silk traveling to Europe Great Britain may be the most well known in this list at least for me with 209 thousand square kilometers it is the largest of the British Isles and the largest European island therefore not including Ireland or Northern Ireland with a population of 61 million people it's the third most populous in the world it's ruled by the United Kingdom through its constituent countries of Scotland Wales and England the earliest known name for it is Albion with a meaning which is similar to wide in Greek it was then named Britannia the land of the Britons a name used by the Romans geographically it refers to this island alone however it has at times been used to refer politically to the whole of England Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the hundreds of small surrounding Islands next Victoria the Canadian island of Victoria part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago has around two hundred and seventee thousand square kilometres and is the world's ninth largest island with only 2,100 people who are almost in total of inward ethnicity there are some disputes as to whether this island is actually larger than Great Britain but most information that I found pointed to it being slightly smaller it was discovered in 1826 by the British and named a Victoria's land one consumed after Queen Victoria in 1839 there doesn't seem to be much to it it's a big island with an Arctic climate and very few inhabitants and finally we have Ellesmere slightly north east of victoria and also a part of canada in its original inner Whitney it is called ooming Mac nuna meaning land of musk oxen most of its territory is mountainous and the Arctic willow is the only wooden species that grows on the island its population is even smaller than Victoria's having only 191 people in 2016 however it's been populated since about 2000 1000 BC by humans who moved there to hunt eventually it was abandoned due to its extreme weather conditions Vikings from the Greenland colonies are said to have reached the island during hunting expeditions establishing trade with the Inuit groups who lived there at a time about one-fifth of the island is protected as a national park with many fjords and glaciers to see and then we have to keep in mind that a lot of these are independent nations or they are formed by more than one state so there are certain countries who aren't in this list but that would be included in a top 10 of largest island nations like Japan the Philippines or New Zealand but anyway those were the world's 10 largest Islands if you enjoy the video and want to catch new ones make sure to subscribe leave a comment below with your opinions and thoughts. Thank You All. |
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