-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Total number of islands in the world
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:09:46 -0600
From: Angie Cope <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: American Geographical Society Library
To: Maps and Air Photo Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
References: <[log in to unmask]>

------------------
Thanks everyone for your help with my island question. The client was
the Wall Street Journal. Check today's issue for an article about buying
your own island. We can check to see if the author found a reasonable
source and if she quoted the total number of islands in the world. She
was thinking that there were about 500,000 and I had found a stat that
said Finland has over 179,000.

I guess it's Friday, right?

Angie
AGS Library

Johnnie D. Sutherland wrote:

> 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".
>
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