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Atka Island
Atka Island: largest island of the Andreanof group in the central Aleutians, Alaska, home to the active Atka volcanic complex (Korovin, Kliuchef, Sarichef vents) and the Aleut village of Atka on Nazan Bay.
Atoll
Atoll: ring-shaped coral reef enclosing a lagoon, built on a subsiding volcano; Darwin's 1842 subsidence theory, confirmed by Enewetak drilling at 1.3 km; 598 counted worldwide; home of Tuvalu, Kiribati, Maldives.
Attu Island
Attu Island (Atux̂), westernmost of Alaska's Aleutians: 346 sq mi, uninhabited since 2010. Site of the June 1942 Japanese occupation and the May 1943 Battle of Attu, the only WWII land battle on North American soil.
Auckland Island
Auckland Island (Maukahuka), largest island of the Auckland Islands, an uninhabited New Zealand subantarctic World Heritage archipelago 465 km south of Bluff; volcanic, 46,000 ha, home to endemic birds, sea lions, and a planned pig, cat, and mouse eradication.
Auckland Islands
Auckland Islands (Maungahuka, Mōtū Maha): largest of New Zealand's five subantarctic island groups, 465 km south of Bluff, 57,000 ha, volcanic and glaciated. World Heritage 1998; Polynesian, sealing, Enderby colony, shipwreck, and coast-watcher history; pigs, cats, mice remain on main island.
Auguste Island
Auguste Island is a small flat-topped island in the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica, charted by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition in 1898 and named by Adrien de Gerlache for his father.
Austvågøya
Austvågøya, Norway's ninth largest island (530 km²) in Nordland county, lies at the Lofoten–Vesterålen boundary, split between Hadsel and Vågan. It holds Svolvær, Kabelvåg, and the medieval town of Vágar.
Awaji Shima
Awaji Shima, or Awaji Island, is an island in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, between Honshu and Shikoku with about 127,000 residents, crossed by the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge.
Axel Heiberg Island
Axel Heiberg Island (Umingmat Nunaat), a 35,180 km² uninhabited island in Nunavut's Sverdrup Islands, known for its Müller and Steacie ice caps, 40-million-year-old mummified fossil forest, McGill Arctic Research Station, and thick Sverdrup Basin geology.
Ayon Island
Ayon Island (Ostrov Ayon), a roughly 2,000 km² low tundra island in the East Siberian Sea at the entrance to Chaunskaya Bay, Chukotka, Russia; village of Ayon, reindeer-herding history, 120 km winter ice road to Pevek.
Azuero Peninsula
Azuero Peninsula (Península de Azuero), Panama's Pacific cattle-ranching heartland in Herrera, Los Santos, and Veraguas; heavily deforested tropical dry forest, Azuero spider monkey habitat, active restoration programs, and Campanian-Eocene forearc geology with the Cerro Quema gold deposit.
Babuyan Island
Babuyan Island: northernmost main island of the Babuyan Islands, Cagayan, Philippines; 73.53 km2 volcanic island with Babuyan Claro and Smith volcanoes, last erupting 1924, home of the Ibatan people.
Baby Island
Baby Island, also known as Hackney Island, is a small 600-foot-long islet in Saratoga Passage, Island County, Washington, at the mouth of Holmes Harbor near Whidbey Island.
Baffin Island
Baffin Island (Qikiqtaaluk), Nunavut, Canada: largest Canadian and fifth-largest world island, 507,451 km², home to Iqaluit, the Barnes and Penny ice caps, Auyuittuq National Park, and the Mary River iron mine.
Bahama Islands
Bahama Islands: low-lying archipelago of 700+ limestone islands and cays southeast of Florida, also called the Lucayas, sitting on the Great and Little Bahama Banks carbonate platforms; highest point Mount Alvernia, 63 m, on Cat Island; independent Commonwealth country since 1973.
Baillie-Hamilton Island
Baillie-Hamilton Island, Nunavut: uninhabited Queen Elizabeth Island in the Canadian Arctic, 290 km2, 26 by 12 km, flat-topped with 215 m cliffs, kittiwake colony at Washington Point, polynya to its north.
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Bainbridge Island, Washington: an island city in Kitsap County in Puget Sound, 35 minutes from Seattle by ferry. Also City of Winslow (incorporated 1947); 24,825 residents (2020), 27.61 sq mi, Suquamish ancestral land, high-income Seattle suburb.
Baja California Peninsula
Baja California Peninsula, northwestern Mexico, states of Baja California and Baja California Sur; arid peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of California, detached by the San Andreas fault system, a plant-endemism hotspot with over 4,000 plant species.
Bajo Nuevo Bank
Bajo Nuevo Bank (Petrel Islands, New Bank) is an uninhabited Caribbean coral bank, 9 by 26 km, with three cays including Low Cay. The ICJ awarded it to Colombia in 2012; the US claims it under the Guano Act of 1856.
Baker Island
Baker Island: uninhabited U.S. coral island just north of the equator, 1,830 nmi southwest of Honolulu; guano-mined 1859-1878, colonized 1935-1942, now a National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.
Bald Head
Bald Head is a bare, ice-free headland 8 miles southwest of View Point on the south side of Trinity Peninsula, Antarctica, at 63°38'S 57°36'W; charted and named by the FIDS in 1945.
Balearic Islands
Balearic Islands (Illes Balears): Spanish Mediterranean archipelago and autonomous community about 150 km east of Iberia; Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, Formentera; Betic geology, endemic fauna, Roman-to-Aragonese history, heavy tourism pressure.
Ball's Pyramid
Ball's Pyramid (Balls Pyramid) is a volcanic sea stack 23 km southeast of Lord Howe Island, Australia, part of the 1982 World Heritage Lord Howe Island Group and the only wild refuge of the critically endangered Lord Howe Island phasmid, rediscovered there in 2001.
Balleny Islands
Balleny Islands, Antarctic island chain in the northern Ross Sea, ~250 km north of Victoria Land; discovered 9 February 1839 by Captain John Balleny of the Eliza Scott; glaciated volcanic islands (Sturge, Buckle, Young) with 2001 eruption and Sabrina Island ASPA 104.
Banaba
Banaba, also known as Ocean Island, is a raised coral island just south of the equator, now part of Kiribati and its highest point, strip-mined for phosphate until its people were displaced to Fiji.
Bangka Island
Pulau Bangka (Bangka Island), Indonesian island east of Sumatra in Kepulauan Bangka Belitung province; name from Sanskrit Wangka, tin. 11,528 km2, four regencies plus Pangkalpinang, Dutch tin mining from 1851, Billiton Maatschappij 1860.
Banks Island (банкс)
Banks Island (банкс) is the fourth largest and westernmost Canadian Arctic Island, in the Northwest Territories, area about 70,000 km2. Home to Aulavik National Park, huge lesser snow goose colonies, over half the world's muskoxen, and the sole settlement Sachs Harbour.
Banks Peninsula
Banks Peninsula (Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū) is a 1,165 sq km volcanic peninsula near Christchurch, New Zealand, formed by the extinct Lyttelton and Akaroa shield volcanoes, named by Cook in 1770, and site of the 1840 French settlement at Akaroa.
Bar Island
Bar Island: name of several small islands, chiefly the tidal island in Acadia National Park, Maine, joined to Bar Harbor by a sand bar walkable 1.5 hours around low tide; also islands in NSW, Canada, and the Marshall Islands.
Baranof Island
Baranof Island (Tlingit Shee), a 4,065 km2 mountainous island in Alaska's Alexander Archipelago; site of Sitka, former Russian-American capital, heavy glaciation, and Tlingit-Russian conflict of 1802 and 1804.