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After seeing the article about North Sentinel island, I wondered how long until a similar one about Ni'ihau. It is typically dubbed the "Forbidden Island" in th
by 205guy 13y ago
After seeing the article about North Sentinel island, I wondered how long until a similar one about Ni'ihau. It is typically dubbed the "Forbidden Island" in the tourist literature, so it was bound to come up in someone's searches.
BTW, there are 2 significant "forbidden" islands in Hawai'i, and numerous small ones. The other large one is Kaho'olawe (due to unexploded ordinance and nominally belonging to native Hawaiians now). The small ones (around several islands) are bird sanctuaries. In fact another island near Ni'ihau is both a sanctuary and an active bombing range: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%CA%BBula http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka%CA%BBula
Yes, I find islands fascinating.
- 205guy 13y agoI just realized my first comment only applies to the "main" Hawaiian Islands. In the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, there are lots of different access regulations, and none of them open to the public. On some islands, the scientists with research permits must carry and dress in sterile clothes separate for each island--so as not to spread seeds, insects, and possible pathogens between islands.
- JacobAldridge 13y agoOT, but I'd love your thoughts as an island lover. Which do you consider to be the world's largest island? (I've always said Australia, but it seems many people exclude it and go with Greenland.)
- 205guy 13y agoI think it's a rather pointless question because there are so many ways to define an island. If you say "land surrounded by water," then it's the EurAsiaAfrican landmass, if you look at geology (of which I am no expert), then you have a lot more nit-picky defintions such as continents, cratons, crusts, rifts, etc. I just read a lot on Wikipedia, where island is defined as a "sub-continental land surrounded by water"[1]. But when you look at the definition of sub-continental, the continents are "generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria"[2]. So it's just convention that large islands like Greenland, Madagascar and New Zealand, which are "pieces" of continents, are not considered continents. Some pieces of continents such as New Caledonia[3] are much smaller than volcanic islands that rose out of the sea. For what it's worth, wikipedia follows the norm and calls Greenland the largest island[4]. And then there's the whole issue of sea level which varies, and as it does, it changes the size, shape, and connection of islands and continents. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_caledonia#Geography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_caledonia#Geography [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Greenland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Greenland
- snambi 13y agoMay be we should just have islands? Why so many names? it is confusing.