1,338 articles
Mackinac Island
Mackinac Island: car-free Lake Huron island in Michigan, 3.8 square miles, ferry-accessed; site of Fort Mackinac (built 1780, captured 1812) and Mackinac Island State Park, formerly Mackinac National Park (1875).
Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island, subantarctic Australian World Heritage island 1,500 km southeast of Tasmania; unique exposed mantle rocks; invasive rabbits, rats and mice eradicated by 2014; year-round research station.
Madura
Madura (Pulau Madura, Polo Madhurâ), Indonesian island off northeast Java in East Java province, divided into Bangkalan, Sampang, Pamekasan, and Sumenep regencies; infertile limestone terrain, salt, tobacco, and cattle economy, linked to Surabaya by the 5.4 km Suramadu bridge.
Magdalen Islands
The Magdalen Islands (Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Menagoesenog) are a 190 km² sandbar-linked Quebec archipelago in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 105 km from Prince Edward Island, with about 12,800 inhabitants, Acadian roots, a CTMA ferry lifeline to Souris, and endemic wildlife.
Mahé, Seychelles
Mahé is the largest island of Seychelles (157.3 km², Morne Seychellois 905 m), home to capital Victoria, most of the population, the international airport, and the site of L'Établissement du Roy, founded 1778.
Majuli (মাজুলী)
Majuli (মাজুলী), the world's largest inhabited river island in the Brahmaputra, Assam, India; a cultural landscape of Satras formed by a 1750 flood, losing half its area to erosion.
Majuro
Majuro (Mājro) is a coral atoll in the central Pacific Ocean and the location of the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, its most populated atoll.
Makira
Makira (San Cristobal, Hanuato'o) is the easternmost major island of Solomon Islands, main island of Makira-Ulawa Province with capital Kirakira; 3,090 km2, mountainous, biodiverse, with new protected areas and a 2026 WCS ocean-governance MoU.
Makkaravjo
Makkaravjo is a historical North Sami spelling of Magerøya (Máhkarávju), the Norwegian island in Nordkapp, Finnmark, home to the North Cape, Knivskjelodden, Honningsvåg, and the 1999 Nordkapptunnelen link to the mainland.
Malabar Coast
Malabar Coast: southern western coastal plain of India along the Arabian Sea, in Kerala and coastal Karnataka; also called the Pepper Coast. Narrow backwater plain, Southwest Monsoon rainfall, historic spice trade center with Calicut and Vasco da Gama's 1498 landing.
Malaita
Malaita: most populous island of Solomon Islands, 4,200 km2, 190 km long, provincial capital Auki; Ontong Java Plateau terrane, Maasina Rule movement, 2020 independence referendum threat.
Malakula (island, Vanuatu)
Malakula (Malekula) is Vanuatu's second-largest island, about 2,000 km2 at 16°15'S 167°30'E in Malampa Province, with roughly 27,000 people speaking over 30 languages, northeast tilting tectonics, vanished-island traditions, and a colonial history of resistance.
Malay Archipelago
The Malay Archipelago, or Indo-Australian Archipelago (Kepulauan Melayu), is the vast island group between Southeast Asia and Australia, including Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and New Guinea.
Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula (Tanah Melayu): southernmost projection of the Asian mainland from the Isthmus of Kra to Tanjung Piai, forming Peninsular Malaysia; granite backbone, tin, Strait of Malacca trade route, Sunda Shelf geology.
Malden Island
Malden Island, also called Independence Island, is an uninhabited raised coral atoll in the southern Line Islands of Kiribati, 700 km SE of Kiritimati; site of 1860–1927 guano mining, prehistoric Polynesian marae ruins, and the three 1957 Operation Grapple nuclear tests; a wildlife sanctuary within the Southern Line Islands MPA.
Maldives–Lakshadweep–Chagos Archipelago tropical moist forests
The Maldives–Lakshadweep–Chagos Archipelago tropical moist forests is a WWF-designated ecoregion spanning the Maldives, Lakshadweep, and Chagos islands, the Indian Ocean's largest atoll system with sparse coastal forest.
Mallorca
Mallorca (Majorca), largest of Spain's Balearic Islands in the western Mediterranean, 3,603 km² with the Serra de Tramuntana range; karst limestone island dependent on groundwater, a UNESCO-listed mountain landscape, and a mass-tourism economy facing drought and overtourism protests.
Malta (island)
Malta (island): largest of the three inhabited Maltese Islands in the central Mediterranean, 93 km south of Sicily; 246 km² limestone island with karst terrain, scarce surface water, EU-highest population density, and prehistoric temples from 3600–2500 BCE.
Maluku Islands
Maluku Islands (Moluccas, Spice Islands): Indonesian archipelago between Sulawesi and New Guinea; historic sole source of nutmeg and mace (Banda Islands), contested by Portuguese, Dutch, and English; capital Ambon.
Maly Lyakhovsky Island
Ostrov Malyy Lyakhovskiy (Малый Ляховский), or Maly Lyakhovsky Island, is the second largest Lyakhovsky Island in the New Siberian Islands, Laptev Sea, Yakutia; upper Jurassic–lower Cretaceous bedrock, thermokarst terraces, and the 2012 find of a female woolly mammoth carcass with preserved soft tissue.
Manitoulin Island
Manitoulin Island, Ontario: the world's largest freshwater island at 2,766 km² in Lake Huron's Georgian Bay, home to Anishinaabe nations, the 1836 Treaty 45 and 1862 surrender, the Little Current swing bridge, and the Chi-Cheemaun ferry.
Mansel Island
Mansel Island, an uninhabited 3,180 km² limestone island in northeastern Hudson Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut; one of three large northern Hudson Bay islands with Southampton and Coats, unoccupied since 1945.
Maramasike
Maramasike, also called Small Malaita, South Malaita, or Sa'a, is the island at the southern tip of Malaita, Solomon Islands, separated from Malaita by the narrow Maramasike Passage and known for its extensive mangrove ecosystems.
Marescot Point
Marescot Point (Spanish: Marescot, Cabo) is a low rocky cape projecting north from Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica, 2.5 nautical miles east of Thanaron Point at 63°29′S 58°35′W, near Marescot Ridge and Stubel Hill.
Mariana Islands
The Mariana Islands are a western Pacific island arc split between US territory Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, formed by Pacific Plate subduction along the Mariana Trench, settled by the Chamorro, and colonized by Spain, Germany, Japan, and the United States.
Marina Beach
Marina Beach is Chennai's roughly 12 km urban beach on the Bay of Bengal, India's longest and the world's second longest beach, named by Governor Grant Duff in the 1880s and lined with statues, memorials, and colonial-era landmarks.
Marinduque
Marinduque is a heart-shaped island province in Mimaropa, Philippines, capital Boac, six municipalities, 226,522 people (2024), known for the Moriones Festival and the 1996 Marcopper mine tailings spill.
Marquesas Islands
Marquesas Islands (Te Henua Enata, Îles Marquises): remote volcanic archipelago of French Polynesia, settled by Polynesians around 1000 CE, annexed by France in 1842, and inscribed as a UNESCO mixed World Heritage site in 2024.
Martha's Vineyard
Martha's Vineyard is a 95-square-mile island about six kilometers south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with six towns, about 20,000 year-round residents swelling past 100,000 in summer, Steamship Authority ferries from Woods Hole, and a severe year-round housing shortage.
Martin Peninsula
Martin Peninsula: ice-covered peninsula, 110 km long, on Marie Byrd Land coast, West Antarctica, between Getz and Dotson Ice Shelves; delineated 1947 from Operation HighJump photos, named for geographer Col. Lawrence Martin.