What is the world's largest island?

[The Last Conformist]

Supercontinent!

I really do think we could do without yet another definition of "supercontinent".

Well, that aside, let's go through the major plates and see what your proposal would amount to:

African plate
Largest landmass: Africa
Note: Madagascar is not a continent.

Antarctic plate
Largest landmass: Antarctica

Eurasian plate
Largest landmass: Eurasia (part)

Indo-Australian plate
Largest landmass: Australia
Note: India is part of Eurasia, but the part of Eurasia on this plate is smaller than Australia

North American plate
Largest landmass: North America (part)
Note: Eastern Siberia is part of Eurasia, but the part of Eurasia on this plate is smaller than that of North America.

Pacific plate
Largest landmass: North America (part) or South Island, NZ (part) (can't tell which is larger from the maps I've got access to)
Note: you needn't worry about Hawaii

South American plate
Largest landmass: South America

Arabian plate
Largest landmass: Eurasia (part)

Caribbean plate
Largest landmass: North America (part)

Cocos plate
Largest landmass: none worth mentioning

Nazca plate
Largest landmass: none worth mentioning

Philippine plate
Largest landmass: Taiwan (part)

Scotia plate
Largest landmass: Tierra del Fuego (part)

To my mild surprise, no real problems here if we feel free to ignore smallish mostly oceanic plates like the Philippine plate. More oddities will turn up if we include more minor plates.

 

[LucyDuke]

Sounds good to me.

I did second-guess using the word supercontinent. It's not really the right term. "Continent spanning more than one continental plate", or just "continent" is probably the best term.

 

[Masquerouge]

Couldn't we just wait a couple hundred million years for the landmasses to form another Pangea? That would make this debate easier.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Couldn't we just wait a couple hundred million years for the landmasses to form another Pangea? That would make this debate easier.

One could argue that this has already happened: Afro-Eurasiato-America forms a global supercontinent divided only by shallow epeiric seas* (which was true also of the classical Pangea for much of its existence), and Australia and Antarctica are too small to count.


* This, incidentally, is a another problem for the continental-shelf-based definition I alluded to early in the thread; one might argue that the Americas are merely a humongous island on the continental shelf of Afro-Eurasia.

 

[RalofTyr]

Technically, Earth is the largest island, as there are particles of water in space that surrounds the landmasses of Earth.

 

[LucyDuke]

Technically, Earth is the largest island, as there are particles of water in space that surrounds the landmasses of Earth.

How are you defining island?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

This being CFC OT, where egregious sophistry is considered a virtue, I'm going to declare that the entire surface of Venus (just over three times the total land area of the Earth) constitutes a single continent.

I salute you and raise you a declaration that the surface of Venus is an island.

 

[Rusted Armor]

I believe what defines an island is being on an oceanic tectonic plate or not being the largest land mass on a continental tectonic plate. As Australia is on its own plate and is the biggest landmass on the Australian Plate it is a continent. Greenland how ever is not the biggest landmass on the North American plate making it an Island.

 

[Loki130]

Couldn't we just wait a couple hundred million years for the landmasses to form another Pangea? That would make this debate easier.

This gives me an idea-What's the biggest landmass in the world that could be left out of a pangea-type landmass with that llarger landmass still being considerred Pangea.

 

[Dame Edna]

Australia is an Island continent which makes it the worlds largest island and smallest continent - see it's easy!

 

[Loki130]

Australia is an Island continent which makes it the worlds largest island and smallest continent - see it's easy!

Some would argue the terms 'island' and 'continent' are mutually exclusive. If not, then Afro-Eurasia is the largest Island.

 

[scy12]

EurasiaAmerica (If we create just one bridge) is the largest Island.

 

[Loki130]

EurasiaAmerica (If we create just one bridge) is the largest Island.

An island is defined as a landmass surrounded totally by water, yes? So it used to be Afro-EurasiAmerica, but since the openning of the Bering straight the title has passed to simply Afro-Eurasia

 

[The Fishman]

1. Generalization
Greenland is generally the world's largest island because, DUH, it IS an island. Australia is generally considered a continent & a country all in a two-in-one package. Almost every person on earth except for the Brits, and Britian's former colonies know that the world's largest island is Greenland.
Who says greenland is an island and not a small continent?

2. Geography
Greenland is, of course, an island. Australia is generally not an island although Australians & Brits think so. It has a mountain range, a desert, a rainforest, a temperate zone... that's just abnormal for an "island". An island should have just one habitat.
Why should an island only have one 'habitat'? The Galapagos Isles have jungles, deserts and volcanic wastelands, and even Greenland, your previous example, has more than one type of natural vegetation. Most of it is an ice sheet, but the bits at the edges are snowy valleys, with small areas of grassland. The far north of Greenland is a polar desert like the centre, only it is so cold that it doesn't snow much, so there is no ice there either. Either it is completely a desert, or a temperate island, or a jungle island.

Plus there is that little island called Tasmania. If you think that Australia is an island & you think that Tasmania should be part of that island, you must be absurd. An island isn't called an island if geographers also count nearby islands as part of that island.
Uh, what about Britain? That's got loads of little islands near it, is that a continent?

And finally, the size. IT'S TOO BIG TO BE AN ISLAND PEOPLE!!!!!
Who says? Is it to big to be an island because it is bigger than greenland, because that's the biggest island?

Geologists generally accept that a continent is a piece of land or sea bed built around a precambrian craton.That makes lots of islands technically continents though, so scientists call them 'microcontinents'. But the fact is, there is no real dividing line between a large island and a small continent, since the whole idea of a continent is just an artificial concept.

You could say that all the continents are just large islands, or you could say that every island made of a seperate piece of continental crust is a small continent (making New Zealand, Madagascar and the Maldives all continents).

Personally, I would say that Australia is the largest island in the continent of Australasia. I've got no good reason for it though.

 

[sourboy]

Australia is a continent. Greenland is part of the American plate-techtonic, though I could accept a good argument to say it doesn't qualify as an island in other ways...

 

[The Fishman]

Australia is a continent. Greenland is part of the American plate-techtonic, though I could accept a good argument to say it doesn't qualify as an island in other ways...

Australia is on the same tectonic plate as India, does that make it part of Asia?

 

[Perfection]

We should accept a fuzzy line between continent and island.

 

[RalofTyr]

What about Antarctica?


Actually, the largest landmass on Earth, was about 4.4 billion years ago before the H2O rained back down on Earth after the Moon impact, was indeed Earth and this will not happen again until a billion years from now when stellar evolution causes the water to evaporate again, leaving Earth a united single landmass...and really, really hot.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

This is why size is a stupid cutoff when trying to determine the largest of anything.

 

[Trajan12]

I wasn't aware that Antarctica was larger than Australia.

Look at it from the bottom.