There are four replys to this question given below.
Moderator
XXXXXX Message 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Alexandria Digital Gazetteer lists 70,088.

http://collections.alexandria.ucsb.edu/adl_gazetteer/metadata.html

Phil Hoehn, Map Librarian
San Francisco -- [log in to unmask]
-----------------------------------
Contractor for David Rumsey Collection:
http://www.davidrumsey.com

XXXXX Message 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

What is the definition? Over a certain area above mean high water?
Like geographic center, seems like a question with a very fuzzy line at
the bottom end of small islands.

Nat Case

--
Nat Case
Hedberg Maps, Inc

XXXXX Message 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Angie Cope (or her client?):

Before anyone vainly attempts this imponderable, first state the definition
of an island!  Is the definition by one particular national mapping and/or
charting agency likely to equate with that of another agency?

There's also an implicit query in this question (as with one or two others
that regularly crop up), that Map Room colleagues here in the past and
present ask themselves: why on Earth would anyone possible want such an
answer?  "Not for us, to reason why . . ." of course.

Bemusedly,
Francis Herbert (Curator of Maps)
[log in to unmask]
http://www.rgs.org [see 'Collections' - including some online catalogs]

XXXXX Message 4 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I was asked earlier this year how many islands there were in New Zealand.
Land Information New Zealand maintains a database of all the official place
names that appear on its maps, and this indicates that about 900 islands
make up New Zealand.  Some of them are very tiny!

Best wishes,


Brian Marshall
Subject Librarian: Geography & Environmental
    Science
University of Auckland Library
Private Bag 92019
Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Telephone:  64 - 9 - 3737599 extension 88452
Fax:        64 - 9 - 3737568
Web: http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/geog/geogsubj.htm
"It is not good for the soul to travel faster than the trot of a camel".

XXXXX End of Messages XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX