# Tiny, Tiny Islands with 1 Palm Tree **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860 "2004-12-03T05:16:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rippingtons\_fan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rippingtons_fan/32/11767_2.png) [@rippingtons\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rippingtons_fan)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/1 "2004-12-03T05:16:33Z")
I’m pretty sure that many people have seen (on tv, in movies, in books, etc.) those real tiny islands with room for one palm tree and maybe two people. What I’d like to know is…do any such islands actually exist, and if so, where are they? Or are they just a convenient device for cartoonists and people making commercials? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/2 "2004-12-03T05:25:00Z")
The wallpaper on my company 'puter is a picture of an inlet with a small all sand island with one plam tree. No other vegetation. As a wag I would say the entire island is about 75 feet long. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/3 "2004-12-03T05:28:16Z")
> [@rippingtons\_fan](#): > > I’m pretty sure that many people have seen (on tv, in movies, in books, etc.) those real tiny islands with room for one palm tree and maybe two people. > > What I’d like to know is…do any such islands actually exist, and if so, where are they? Or are they just a convenient device for cartoonists and people making commercials? sometimes it’s an atoll, where most of the land is washed away, leaving a coral reef which eventually wears away to just sand. sometimes it is part of the larger island, an ithmus that is temporarily or permanently cut off from a larger island. The picture is angled such, you don’t see the surrounding land to the side. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/4 "2004-12-03T05:34:44Z")
Eureka! Now I know why I haven’t been able to find on the map some of those countries in the Coalition of the Willing.😃 ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/5 "2004-12-03T07:10:11Z")
Yes, there are- but most of them are right near another island etc. Rarely would you find something like that all by itself in the middle of the ocean. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/6 "2004-12-03T07:15:02Z")
Quite a few coral reefs have one point where sand gathers enough to produce a little sand island which is not part of or associated with any large island. Coral cays they are called. There’s hundreds of them in the Great Barrier Reef region, so I expect there are others in other regions. ---
**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:** [December 3, 2004, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/7 "2004-12-03T07:24:29Z")
It’s worth noting that any island that small won’t always be that small. Presumably, there’s some land which is always above water, since I don’t think that palm trees would grow underwater, which means that the typical image of an island a dozen feet across would be at high spring tide. So at low tide, the island would probably be hundreds of feet across. ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/8 "2004-12-03T07:38:46Z")
Coconut palms can deal with quite a bit of salinity in their water, to 0.6% (which will kill most crops off). However they cannot grow in it. What usually happens is they find the lense of fresh water that floats on top of the salt water layer in atoll soils. So, that lone coconut palm is getting water from a water table under the sand. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/9 "2004-12-03T07:43:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yes, there are- but most of them are right near another island etc. > > Rarely would you find something like that all by itself in the middle of the ocean. How rarely? Does it ever occur? I was wondering this myself a month or so ago, while reading Christopher Moore’s _Island of the Sequined Love Nun_. I was thinking that most islands in the ocean are volcanic, and could a volcano really form a little tiny island like that, right up from the ocean floor? Or would that type of tiny island only form in areas where the ocean was really really shallow anyway, for whatever reason? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/10 "2004-12-03T11:23:59Z")
I have seen such an island with my own eyes - I’ll try and find a photo of it if I remember. It was on the fringing reef of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. One palm tree, but another smaller one was sprouting nearby to spoil the effect… ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/11 "2004-12-03T11:36:18Z")
There’s one pictured [here](http://www.pro-visions.com/beaches.htm) (2nd row from bottom, left) that almost fits the criteria, but it has some other vegetation and is somewhat rocky too. Don’t know where it is. And [another one](http://www.tropix.co.uk/Themes/water/water%201.htm) (bottom row, middle) but it’s so small it’s hard to see. Caption says: “View past deep blue sea to coral island with single palm tree, on horizon. Coast north of Madang, Papua New Guinea”. Then there’s [One Tree Island](http://www.usyd.edu.au/publications/news/info03/info03_island.html) on the Great Barrier Reef, but the name’s a bit of an exaggeration. And here is probably the best contender I could find on the web, in [Fiji](http://www.gypsyjournal.com/Chapter.asp?ChapterID=108) (two photos on this page, but not such great desert island weather!) So they are out there. As others said, though, they are usually the “motus”, or tiny islands on the reef fringing a larger island. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/12 "2004-12-03T11:39:16Z")
Sorry **chorpler** , I didn’t mean I have seen a volcanic deep-water island like this. I don’t think you would find one, to be honest… ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/13 "2004-12-03T12:08:48Z")
> [@aahala](#): > > Eureka! Now I know why I haven’t been able to find on the map some of those countries in the Coalition of the Willing.😃 Wow. A seemingly innocuous OP in GQ and you find a way to get your pathetic political dig in. Kudos. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-tiny-islands-with-1-palm-tree/277860/14 "2004-12-03T12:46:04Z")
Ah, but has anybody ever seen such an island, along with two castaways who are so hungry that they imagine each other to be a giant hamburger or hot dog? 😉