May I suggest the use of one of those things called “adjectives”? It’s an artificial island, with the “artificial” part used only if it’s relevant.
I chose the one Britannica specifically says—citing geographers—is NOT an island, because it is a continent. This is also what I was taught in school growing up in three disparate regions of the country, but I never thought it made a lot of sense.
“It” being…? To which island are you referring?
There’s a relatively famous court case that ruled that Long Island, New York is NOT an island. (I’ll Google for a cite if there’s interest and nobody beats me to it.)
According to Wiki:
when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal or Marble Hill in northern Manhattan during the time between the building of the United States Ship Canal and the filling-in of the Harlem River which surrounded the area, it is** generally not considered an island.**
Interesting. But I assume such status can be artificially taken away, by filling in water?
I’m interested! Even though I am more sympathetic to their claim than the one in my OP.
Nope. As all of your parts beneath the waterline are free-floating, you are a ship. Or possibly a boat.
Since completion of the Panama Canal, shouldn’t we have North Amer-island and South Amer-island?
Since the completion of the Suez canal, there’s the island of Africa and the island of Eurasia.
No. Man is an island.
NM
If artificial canals counted, then pretty much the entire outer edge of the US east coast would be islands.
I’ll link to my 2016 post in “Any Disputed US State Borders?”:
Well, I used to live in Blue Island, and it’s neither blue nor an island. LOL
Here you go. I was unaware. Interesting.
Very interesting indeed. Now I just need them to endorse my commonsense ratio argument.
Does that make an anchored ship an island?
A chance to throw in a geographical oddity - the island of Seil, off the west coast of Scotland and the bridge that spans the Atlantic
Seil is an island in the same way that Manhattan is - it’s separated from the mainland by tidal straights, it’s just that the straights are very narrow compared to the size of the island.
The only reasonable test for islandness is “is it completely separated from the mainland by (natural) water?” If you start trying to impose “commonsense rules” you wind up un-islanding indisputable islands that fail some arbitrary test.
Incidentally, when googling on Seil I found a news item saying that the local authority had been denied extra funding given to “island communities”, on the grounds that it had a road link…
Now, you’re just being silly.
… although I do consider Pangaea qualified as an island a few years back.
You’re certainly entitled to prefer that test, but it’s going a bit far to declare all other standards to be unreasonable. Your standard may have broadness working for it, but then how do you define “mainland”? All land is completely surrounded by water if you zoom out far enough.
That’s a strong statement. Can you back it up? Use the standard I posted upthread: what “indisputable” islands would it disqualify?
And yes: with geography, sometimes things have to be arbitrary, as with Australia. (Happens in astronomy, too. I’m going to guess you don’t like the fact that the IAU took away planet status from Pluto?)
Good! I agree: if you can drive there, it’s not the kind of place that should be benefiting from such programmes (not that I’m out to disqualify all islands connected to the mainland by bridges or tunnels, although that is another way you could go).
Then there are places that are surrounded by water during high tide, but not during low tide (In general, I’d say they aren’t islands)
But Cana Island in Door County can be connected (by a causeway) depending on the water levels in Lake Michigan (and probably the wind)
Last time I visted the causeway was covered by 6-10" of water (some folks walked, but you could take a trailer pulled by a tractor)
Brian