1,338 articles
Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach is a 28-kilometer shingle barrier beach in Dorset, England, running from West Bay to the Isle of Portland and sheltering the shallow Fleet Lagoon.
Chesterfield Islands
Chesterfield Islands (Îles Chesterfield): uninhabited coral islets on one of the world's largest atolls in the Coral Sea, ~500 km northwest of New Caledonia; French since 1876, named after the 1793 whaler Chesterfield; major green turtle and seabird nesting site, protected within the Natural Park of the Coral Sea.
Chichagof Island
Chichagof Island (Tlingit: Shee Kaax) is a mostly roadless island in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska, one of the ABC islands, known for dense brown bear populations and its largest community, Hoonah.
Chichijima (父島)
Chichijima (父島) is the largest inhabited island of the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands, about 1,000 km south of Tokyo, and serves as the seat of Ogasawara Village, Tokyo.
Chiloé Island
Chiloé Island (Isla Grande de Chiloé), largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago in southern Chile's Los Lagos Region: 9,080 km², about 100,000 inhabitants, Spanish colonial wooden churches, potato heritage, and salmon farming.
Chios (Χίος)
Chios (Χίος) is a Greek North Aegean island, 842 km², fifth largest in Greece, 3.5 nautical miles from Turkey, famed as the only source of cultivated mastic, with medieval mastic villages, Nea Moni, and a history of Genoese and Ottoman rule.
Chongming Dao
Chongming Dao (崇明岛), Chongming Island, is the world's largest estuarine alluvial island and China's third largest island, at the Yangtze River mouth under Shanghai's Chongming District; formed from Tang-era sandbars, split into north and south river branches, now an eco-island with Dongtan bird reserve.
Chukchi Peninsula
Chukchi Peninsula (Chukotsky poluostrov, Чукотский полуостров), also Chukotka Peninsula: Russian Far East peninsula, Asia's eastern extremity at Cape Dezhnev, across the 80 km Bering Strait from Alaska; permafrost tundra, Chukchi homeland, edge of Beringia.
Clarence Island
Clarence Island, also Ostrov Shishkova (Russia) and Isla Shackleton (Chile), is the easternmost island of the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, discovered by Bransfield in 1820 and named for the Duke of Clarence; a Chilean namesake lies in Tierra del Fuego.
Clarie Coast
Clarie Coast, called Wilkes Coast in Australia, is a portion of the coast of Wilkes Land in East Antarctica, lying between 130°05'E and 136°10'E and fronting the Dumont d'Urville Sea.
Clavering Ø
Clavering Ø (Clavering Island) is a 1,500 km² island in Northeast Greenland's national park, named after Captain Douglas Clavering, who met twelve Inuit there in 1823; it holds the region's largest Thule settlement at Dødemandsbugten.
Coats Island
Coats Island (Akpatuurjuaq) is a 5,498 km² uninhabited island in northern Hudson Bay, Nunavut, Canada, the largest uninhabited island in the northern hemisphere south of the Arctic Circle, known for thick-billed murre colonies, the Sadlermiut, and its seabird research station.
Cobalescou Island
Cobalescou Island (Insula Cobălcescu), small ice-free island east of Two Hummock Island, Gerlache Strait, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica; charted by the Belgica expedition 27 January 1898, named for Romanian geologist Grigore Cobălcescu.
Cobourg Peninsula (landform)
Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory's north-western tip in Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, was the world's first Ramsar wetland (8 May 1974, site no. 1, 220,700 ha), rich in threatened species and Arrarrkbi heritage.
Coburg Island
Coburg Island: uninhabited Nunavut island in eastern Jones Sound between Ellesmere and Devon islands, separating Lady Ann Strait from Glacier Strait; Nirjutiqavvik National Wildlife Area (1995) with 160,000 pairs of Thick-billed Murres at Cambridge Point.
Cockburn Island
Cockburn Island (Antarctica): small ice-free island at 64°12'S, 56°51'W in the NE entrance of Admiralty Sound, off the Antarctic Peninsula. Charted by James Clark Ross in 1843, named for Admiral Sir George Cockburn; site of the first Antarctic botanical collections and the Pliocene Cockburn Island Formation.
Cocos Island
Cocos Island (Isla del Coco), Costa Rica's remote Pacific volcanic island 550 km offshore, is the only rainforest-covered oceanic island in the tropical eastern Pacific; its national park, a 1997 UNESCO World Heritage Site, protects famous shark-rich waters.
Commander Islands
Commander Islands (Командорские острова, Komandorskiye ostrova), Russian four-island archipelago, westernmost Aleutians, 175 km east of Kamchatka; discovered 1741 when Vitus Bering was wrecked and died on Bering Island; excluded from the 1867 Alaska purchase; only village Nikolskoye.
Comoro Islands
Comoro Islands: volcanic archipelago in the Mozambique Channel (Ngazidja/Grande Comore, Anjouan, Mohéli, Mayotte). Union of the Comoros independent 1975; Mayotte stayed French; Karthala volcano 2,654 m; Swahili-influenced, agriculture- and remittance-based economy.
Corfu (Κέρκυρα)
Corfu (Κέρκυρα, Kerkyra) is a Greek Ionian island at the entrance to the Adriatic, ruled by Venice 1386–1797 and never taken by the Ottomans; its UNESCO-listed Old Town and two fortresses date mainly to Venetian and British rule.
Cornwall Island
Cornwall Island names several Canadian places: an uninhabited 2,358 km² Arctic island in Nunavut's Queen Elizabeth Islands, named by Belcher in 1852; a Saint Lawrence River island south of Cornwall, Ontario; and a Northwest Territories island.
Cornwallis Island (undersea feature)
Cornwallis Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica: small island NE of Elephant Island, charted by Bransfield 1820, named after Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, rising to 470 m; distinct from the Nunavut namesake.
Coromandel Peninsula
Coromandel Peninsula: mountainous volcanic peninsula in New Zealand's North Island, named after HMS Coromandel (1820). Known for 1860s gold rushes, kauri logging, Cathedral Cove, Hot Water Beach, and over 72,000 hectares of conservation land.
Corregidor
Corregidor: tadpole-shaped fortified island (5.5 sq km) at the entrance of Manila Bay, Philippines; Spanish, American, and Japanese fortress; fell May 1942, retaken 1945; now a national war shrine with Malinta Tunnel and Pacific War Memorial.
Cozumel
Cozumel (Kùutsmil, Maya island) is an island and municipality in Quintana Roo, Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea off the Yucatán coast. It is the world's busiest cruise port of call, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2016, a Pueblo Mágico, and home to the San Gervasio Maya site and the rare Cozumel fox.
Crannog
Crannog (Irish crannóg, Scottish Gaelic crannag): an artificial or partly artificial island dwelling built in lakes and estuaries of Scotland and Ireland, from the Iron Age into the medieval period, with about 400 Scottish and 1,500 Irish sites.
Cres
Cres is the largest Croatian island (405.7 km²) in the Kvarner Gulf of the Adriatic, 66 km long, with karst Lake Vrana supplying water to Cres and Lošinj, a history from Liburnians through Venetian rule, and griffon vulture reserves.
Crete (Κρήτη)
Crete (Κρήτη), the largest Greek island and fifth largest in the Mediterranean, area 8,303–8,336 km², population 624,408 (2021), home of Minoan civilization, with Knossos, a tourism-dominated economy and a new 1,000 MW mainland power link.
Crimea (Крим)
Crimea (Крим, Krym) is a Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 1783, transferred to Ukraine in 1954, and seized and annexed again by Russia in 2014, an act the UN declared invalid; its indigenous Crimean Tatars were deported in 1944.
Cronenwett Island
Cronenwett Island (Chinese: 克罗嫩韦特岛) is a high, ice-covered island about 40 km long in the Marshall Archipelago, Sulzberger Ice Shelf, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, at 77°S 150°W, between Vollmer and Steventon Islands, named for US Navy Commander W.R. Cronenwett.