# Greenland, the world’s largest island? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 22, 2026, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917 "2026-01-22T07:22:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/41 "2026-01-23T09:09:49Z")
Important to distinguish between continental crust and plates. Plates include oceanic crust which is subject to subduction, and genesis in rifts. Continental crust is lighter and very much thicker, and outlives oceanic crust, which is why the continents wander about the planet banging into one another, joining and parting ways, whilst oceans basically fill in the gaps, without any long term existence. Whilst a map of plates generally shows how continents sit on the plates, the plate extent isn’t a long term component. They are being destroyed and created at the edges. Continental crust is between 2.5 and 3.5 billion years old. The oceanic crust is an order of magnitude or two younger. So if you want to talk continents, the better boundaries to use are the continental crust boundaries. On that basis, not only is Greenland part of a major continent, it is the same continent as North America. That entity has floated about for billions of years. It was part of Pangea, but seemed to avoid joining Gondwana. And that only covers abut the last 250 MA. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/42 "2026-01-23T14:22:58Z")
Hm, am I reading that correctly that Kamchatka and some other eastern parts of Russia, as well as the North Pole, are on the North American Plate? I never really thought of the North Pole as being any plate, though in retrospect, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be. Although, there’s something odd going on with that map, since the left and right edges don’t match up. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/43 "2026-01-23T14:52:58Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > > [@Chronos](#): > > > > Russia is culturally European. > > I’m not sure that’s clear - Russia is culturally disparate. > **LET IT BE** clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next. Kipling, “The Man Who Was” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/44 "2026-01-23T15:04:27Z")
Kipling wasn’t a sociologist, but that’s a very interesting and pithy take on the topic I’d not read before. Thank you. He wrote that in the late 1880s & it was published in 1891. I daresay “The Russian” is a sorta different character today than 135+ years ago. They’ve experienced rather a lot of history up close and personal during that time. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/45 "2026-01-23T15:09:20Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Yes, Australia is a continent. It’s also an island (a body of land completely surrounded by water). So then Australia isn’t the world’s biggest island. Eurasia is. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/46 "2026-01-23T16:26:33Z")
Indeed, I stand corrected on Borneo. Replace it with nearby Sumatra. As for Britain: I realise that many Scottish or Welsh people feel strongly about not being English; but still, they’re part of the UK, which is , despite devolution, still a unitary country and not a federation. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/47 "2026-01-23T16:30:50Z")
As an aside, this is why modern Russia (i.e. the post-1991 Russian Federation, or perhaps the post-1917 RSFSR already) invented the neologism “rossisky” as an adjective for Russia in the political sense, whereas the traditional term “russky” is confined to Russia in the ethnic sense. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/48 "2026-01-23T18:31:47Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > And as for Australia, I’ve also been taught that it’s a continent rather than an island. I recall the same in the 1980s but it did have sort of an asterisk, like how the Vatican is the exception to a lot of rules. Globes were used to demonstrate distorted map projections that show, for example, hulking Greenland in better scale, close to the size of Madagascar. I just zoomed all the way back on google maps and Alaska appears as big as Australia and about 3/4 the size of China. But we could also see how relatively small Australia is for a Continental title and they get it all to themselves, no Canadas. Hey, no fair! ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/49 "2026-01-23T19:30:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Hm, am I reading that correctly that Kamchatka and some other eastern parts of Russia, as well as the North Pole, are on the North American Plate? Yup. The North American plate is one of the largest, second only to the Pacific plate. Most people probably think the Eurasian plate is larger than NA. The continent sizes are misleading here. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/50 "2026-01-23T20:17:50Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > As for Britain: I realise that many Scottish or Welsh people feel strongly about not being English; but still, they’re part of the UK, which is , despite devolution, still a unitary country and not a federation. The issue isn’t that the UK is multiple countries per se, but that England, Scotland, and Wales are all considered countries, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/51 "2026-01-23T20:59:24Z")
But this is a purely cultural terminology. Politically, the UK is one country (a state in the meaning of international law) and a unitary (non-federal one) at that. If a claim be made that the constituent components of the UK are “countries”, then the same can at least as well be said about the states of the US or Australia, or the provinces of Canada, or the cantons of Switzerland. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/52 "2026-01-23T20:59:45Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > > [@Schnitte](#): > > > > As for Britain: I realise that many Scottish or Welsh people feel strongly about not being English; but still, they’re part of the UK, which is , despite devolution, still a unitary country and not a federation. > > The issue isn’t that the UK is multiple countries per se, but that England, Scotland, and Wales are all considered countries, as well. The bigger issue to me is that the UK covers more than just one island. It’s like one and a quarter. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/53 "2026-01-23T21:14:25Z")
Those situations are not entirely parallel. Scotland and England were historically and legally separate countries up until 1707, and retain distinct legal and governmental systems to a degree. Manitoba and New Brunswick don’t have that relationship. But like the island / continent issue, it’s not a clear line. Some independent microstates are less “countries” than is Scotland, but we sort of have a conventional agreement that the four biggest islands aren’t islands, and countries within a larger country aren’t countries. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/54 "2026-01-23T22:03:56Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Those situations are not entirely parallel. Scotland and England were historically and legally separate countries up until 1707, and retain distinct legal and governmental systems to a degree. Weren’t the 13 original colonies that formed the U.S. also historically and legally separate countries until the Article of Confederation were ratified in 1781? After all, there’s a reason the resulting federation was called the “United **States** of America”. The “states” at the time of the Declaration of Independence referred to individual nation-states. Which is also why the United States of America was referenced in the plural as opposed to the singular. Prior to independence, they were distinct colonies. Following independence, they were independent nation-states before they were subsumed under the U.S. federal government. And the individual states to this day, while no longer nation-states in their own right, still retain distinct legal and governmental systems. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/55 "2026-01-23T22:43:48Z")
Some states (Vermont, Texas, Hawai’i) have had historic experiences as countries, and some (Massachusetts, Virginia) were partway there as independent colonies, while others (North Dakota, Idaho) don’t have any such history. But the point is that the distinction between “independent country” and “division within an independent country” isn’t quite such a neat, bright line as would be convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Nerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed655f/32.png) [@Ancient\_Nerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Nerd)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/56 "2026-01-24T01:51:45Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Some states (Vermont, Texas, Hawai’i) have had historic experiences as countries [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Flag_of_California.svg/330px-Flag_of_California.svg.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/01/Flag_of_California.svg/330px-Flag_of_California.svg.png) I’m not sure how long the Bear Flag Republic lasted but was long enough to make the state flag. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/57 "2026-01-24T01:57:55Z")
> [@Ancient\_Nerd](#): > > I’m not sure how long the Bear Flag Republic lasted Three whole weeks. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/58 "2026-01-24T02:07:50Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > [@Ancient\_Nerd](#): > > > > I’m not sure how long the Bear Flag Republic lasted > > Three whole weeks The Republic of West Florida lasted a good 10 weeks, more than three times that period. > **[Republic of West Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_West_Florida)** > > The Republic of West Florida (Spanish: República de Florida Occidental, French: République de Floride occidentale), officially the State of Florida, was a short-lived unrecognized republic in the western region of Spanish West Florida for just over .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0... ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/59 "2026-01-24T10:15:14Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > e.g. Borneo, Borneo hosts Brunei, and the rest is split between Indonesia and Malaysia. (I’ve long wanted to visit Sulawesi, so I have an interest in the region) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917/60 "2026-01-24T10:26:33Z")
As long as the ice stays solid, Greenland is a single landmass geologically, not just practically but really. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greenland-the-world-s-largest-island/1026917.md?page=4)