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Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands: a Caribbean archipelago of about 60 islands east of Puerto Rico, split between the U.S. Virgin Islands (bought from Denmark for $25 million in 1917) and the British Virgin Islands.
Vis (island)
Vis is Croatia's farthest inhabited island, 90.3 km², site of the Greek colony Issa founded 397 BC, Tito's 1944 headquarters, and a Yugoslav military zone closed to foreigners until 1989.
Visayas
Visayas (Kabisayaan) is the central island group of the Philippines, divided into Western Visayas, Negros Island Region, Central Visayas, and Eastern Visayas, with 2024 populations and Central Visayas the fastest-growing regional economy in 2024.
Viti Levu
Viti Levu is Fiji's largest island (10,429 km²), home to the capital Suva and most of the population; site of the Bourewa Lapita settlement, the oldest known in Fiji.
Vize Islands
Vize Islands (Wiese Islands, Vize ostrova) are a small Antarctic island group at 65°40'S 65°37'W, 4.6 km south of the Karelin Islands off Renaud Island's east side in the Biscoe Islands, first charted accurately by Argentina in 1957.
Vostok Island (остров Восток)
Vostok Island (остров Восток), also called Vostok, is an uninhabited 0.2 km2 low coral island in the southern Line Islands, Kiribati, named in 1820 by Bellingshausen after his sloop Vostok; Pisonia forest, frigatebird sanctuary, within SLIMPA.
Vozrozhdeniya Island
Vozrozhdeniya Island (Остров Возрождения), or Rebirth Island, was an Aral Sea island housing the Soviet Aralsk-7 bioweapons test site; it joined the mainland in 2001 after the sea dried up, and over 12 tons of anthrax were later removed.
Waiheke Island
Waiheke Island (Te Motu-arai-roa), reached by ferry from Auckland, is the most populated island in New Zealand's Hauraki Gulf, home to about 9,500 people and known for vineyards.
Wake Island
Wake Island is a U.S. Pacific atoll of three coral islets (Wake, Peale, Wilkes) with no fresh water or native population, defended in December 1941, surrendered December 23, and now a military airfield.
Wales Island
Wales Island: name of several Canadian islands, chiefly a 35-square-mile island on the British Columbia North Coast near Portland Inlet and Prince Rupert, and an uninhabited island off the Melville Peninsula in Nunavut's Committee Bay.
Walgreen Coast
Walgreen Coast: Antarctic coast of Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica, between Cape Herlacher and Cape Waite on the Amundsen Sea; discovered February 1940 from USS Bear and named for Charles R. Walgreen.
Watkins Island
Watkins Island, formerly Mikkelsen Island, is one of the largest of the Biscoe Islands off the Antarctic Peninsula at 66°22'S 67°05'W, surveyed by the BGLE 1935-36 and renamed for Arctic explorer Gino Watkins (1907-32).
Wauwermans Islands
Wauwermans Islands: northernmost island group of the Wilhelm Archipelago off the Antarctic Peninsula, charted by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition in 1898 and named after Lieut. Gen. H. Wauwermans of Antwerp; islands named for Canterbury Tales characters.
Welchness
Welchness (Cabo/Punta Welchness) is a gravel-spit cape at 63°29'S 56°15'W, the west extremity of Dundee Island, Antarctica; charted 1893, named for Dundee whaler Capt. George Welch, and site of Argentina's Petrel Base.
Wellington Island
Wellington Island (Isla Wellington), a large continental island in Chile's Patagonian archipelago west of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, mostly within Bernardo O'Higgins National Park; its only settlement is Puerto Edén, home to a Kawésqar community.
West Falkland
West Falkland (Gran Malvina), second largest Falkland Island, about 4,500 km2, site of the 1690 first recorded landing and the British settlement of Port Egmont (1765); main settlements Fox Bay and Port Howard.
Wetar
Pulau Wetar (Wetar Island), Indonesian island in the Inner Banda Arc, Southwest Maluku, near Timor; volcanic, sparsely populated, historic VOC-Topass rivalry, gold-rich VMS deposits, and the Wetar Copper Mine.
Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island (Lushootseed bəc̓adᶻali) is Washington State's largest island, in Puget Sound's Island County. Named for Joseph Whidbey in 1792; settled by Isaac Ebey in 1851; home of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
White Cliffs of Dover
The White Cliffs of Dover, also called the Dover white cliffs, are chalk sea cliffs in Kent, England, stretching about 10 miles between Folkestone and Walmer.
Whitehaven Beach
Whitehaven Beach: 7 km of 98% pure white silica sand on Whitsunday Island, Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia; boat-access-only national park beach, Ngaro sea country, named world's best beach for 2025 by Lonely Planet.
Whitsunday Island (island, Australia)
Whitsunday Island, largest of the 74 Whitsundays islands off Queensland, Australia; home of Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet, Ngaro traditional land, protected in Whitsunday Islands National Park, boat access only.
Whitsunday Islands
The Whitsunday Islands are over 90 continental islands off central Queensland, part of the Cumberland group, within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. Six national parks, Ngaro occupation for 9,000 years, Whitehaven Beach, humpback calving grounds, access from Airlie Beach.
Wiencke Island
Wiencke Island: Antarctic island in the Palmer Archipelago, 16 mi long, between Anvers Island and the Antarctic Peninsula; named for seaman Carl-August Wiencke, who died on the Belgica expedition in 1898.
Wild Coast
The Wild Coast (Transkei) is a 250 km rugged, undeveloped coastline in South Africa's Eastern Cape, a former apartheid homeland, Xhosa heartland, site of the 1 km coastal development ban, Xolobeni mining and Shell seismic-survey litigation, and growing illegal sand mining.
Wilkins Coast
Wilkins Coast: section of the east coast of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula, from Cape Agassiz to Cape Boggs at 69°40'S 63°00'W, named for aviator Sir Hubert Wilkins after his 1928 Antarctic flight.
Windward Islands
The Windward Islands are the southern Lesser Antilles group: Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada, with Barbados often included. Named for trade-wind exposure, they form a volcanic island arc where the Atlantic plate subducts beneath the Caribbean plate.
Wirral Peninsula
Wirral Peninsula: land between the Mersey and Dee estuaries and Liverpool Bay in north-west England, about 60 square miles; Norse-settled, home of Birkenhead Park (1847) and the 1886 Mersey Railway, now under Wirral Council's 2025 Local Plan.
Woody Island (South China Sea)
Woody Island (Yongxing Dao, 永兴岛; Vietnamese: Đảo Phú Lâm) is the largest Paracel Island, occupied by China since 1974, housing Sansha City, a 2,700 m airstrip, HQ-9 missiles, and over 1,000 residents.
Wrangel Island
Wrangel Island (Ostrov Vrangelya) is a 7,608 km2 Russian Arctic island and 2004 UNESCO World Heritage site, unglaciated in the Quaternary, with the largest Pacific walrus population, densest polar bear dens, and mammoths surviving to about 4,000 years ago.
Wrangell Island
Wrangell Island, Alaska: island in the Alexander Archipelago, Inside Passage, home to the City and Borough of Wrangell near the Stikine River mouth; 42 miles long, Tlingit homeland, timber-to-tourism economy, 2023 fatal landslide.