Archipelago

Main archipelagos and islands of the world.

Map of the Canary Islands.

An archipelago is that group, generally numerous, of islands grouped in a more or less extensive surface of the sea. These islands are close to each other and can originate in different ways, and that is why there are several types.

These islands are segments of fertile land completely surrounded by sea, and together they form an archipelago. In addition to islands, archipelagos may contain other minor land masses such as islets, reefs, and cays.

Etymology

The word comes from the Greek άρχι (meaning, "upper") and πέλαγος ("sea"). Formerly the word archipielgus meant "Main Sea" and referred to the Aegean Sea as it is densely populated with islands. In Italian, it began as the proper name for the Aegean Sea from 1268 and later, the use came to refer to the islands of the Aegean Sea. Since then, it has been used to refer to any group of islands or sometimes to a sea containing a small number of scattered islands.^{[citation needed]}

Types

The most frequent archipelagos are those of a volcanic nature associated with large eruptions of magma but they can also be the result of erosion or deposition of land.

Depending on the geological origin, the islands that form the archipelagos can be considered as oceanic islands or continental islands, and consequently, the archipelagos can be oceanic or continental.

Oceanic Archipelagos

Oceanic archipelagos are made up of islands that do not belong to a continental tectonic plate and are mainly of volcanic origin. The formation of these archipelagos is much faster than the formation of continental archipelagos.

The Hawaiian archipelago, United States is a clear example of this type of archipelago.

Continental Archipelagos

The land masses that make up the continental islands belong to continental fragments that have been separated from the main landmass of the continent by the movement of tectonic plates and other geological phenomena. Unlike oceanic archipelagos, its formation is very slow.

The Balearic Islands, Greenland and the British Isles are examples of continental archipelagos.

List

The vast majority of the best-known archipelagos are located in Southeast Asia, to this group we could add the Hawaiian Islands (belong to the United States) and the Canary Islands (belong to Spain). The Malay Archipelago is considered one of the largest in the world, being made up of more than 25,000 islands. Below is a list of the best-known archipelagos. Not all of them are included in this list, due to the difficulty of determining all of the existing ones in the world.

• Canadian Arctic Archipelago
• Archipelago de Las Guaitecas
• Archipelago Guayaneco
• Earth of Fire Archipelago
• Chiloé Archipelago
• Bismarck Archipelago
• Archipelago of Japan
• Archipelago Malayo
• Dahlak Archipelago
• Chagos Archipelago
• Archipelago de los Roques
• Stockholm Archipelago
• Turku Archipelago
• Juan Fernández Archipelago
• Archipelago of the Falkland Islands
• Archipelago of the Azores
• The Major Antilles
• The Lesser Antilles
• Hawaiian Archipelago
• Archipelago de San Andrés
• Canary Islands
• Galapagos Islands
• Nordenskiöld Archipelago