What is an island?

[Figleaf]

It is not until you are confronted with a person who collects pictures of coins and tokens of islands that you realise that the question is not simple. Wikipedia defines an island as An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water.

Sub-continental is a key word. Australia is not an island.

Arguably, Ireland and the UK share an island. Other islands shared by states are e.g. Sint Maarten (Sint Maarten and Saint Martin), Hispaniola (Haïti and the Dominican Republic) and New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Indonesia). However, there are also one-state islands, like Iceland and Malagasy. Apparently, nationality has no influence on island status, but Wikipedia defines on:

An island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge; examples are Singapore and its causeway, and the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. Some places may even retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after being connected to a larger landmass by a land bridge or landfill, such as Coney Island and Coronado Island, though these are, strictly speaking, tied islands. Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal, more or less the entirety of Fennoscandia by the White Sea 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.

Maybe I can paraphrase this as: man-made geographic changes don't count. Mont St-Michel remains an island, even when there's a bridge leading op to it. Unless the whole thing is man-made, because Wikipedia says There are also artificial islands, which are man-made.

So, a poor collector needs coins from New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Malagasy, Cyprus, Crete, Malta and more island states issuing circulating coins, but also archipelagos like Zeeland. Fine. Almost. How about Denmark, part peninsula, part archipelago?

Now, we turn to tokens. If there is some reason for tokens to circulate, things are clear. Or are they? The Puffin tokens were accepted in the only watering hole on Lundy and they were also deemed illegal and re-struck. Ouch. It gets worse with ferry tokens. They may refer to an island but the ferry doesn't even come on land there. It just bumps into it. Places may no longer be an island duee to silting or may never have been an island (Ile de France, the area around Paris). It becomes ridiculous when a place catering to children calls itself Pirate's Island.

Next on the problem list are archipelagos. If Greenland or Malagasy or the UK consist of a main island and assorted bits and pieces around it, are the main islands not islands? According to Wiki they are. A collector can define it differently, but if he does, the question arises at what point does an island become a main island?

I asked some of these questions to our member Alex Island. He didn't answer, so now it's your turn: what is an island?

Peter

[Alan71]

Why is Australia not an island?  It's classed as one country even though there are different states?  Its size surely can't dictate its status?  It's not really a continent as it has no politically independent states within it?

[Figleaf]

Australia is a continent, therefore not an island. See above. Continents are not defined as having several states: A continent is one of several very large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents geopolitically.

From Wikipedia: Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands.

BTW, Oceania is defined as a region, but not a continent.

Peter

[Alex Island]

I asked some of these questions to our member Alex Island. He didn't answer, so now it's your turn: what is an island?

Peter

I can say why I was interested in the geographical islands (and their tokens). The point is that each small island has its own unique name that does not depend on the country or the political situation; in addition, each small island is objectively a completely separate and independent territory because there is water around it. It seems to me that this is a geographical special value that makes the history of each island quite independent, regardless of the country to which it belongs. And this is interesting in my opinion ..

[FosseWay]

There is another contentious issue with island categorisation: what do you do with tidal islands? Ones like Lindisfarne and St Michael's Mount in England which are islands at high tide but can be walked/driven to at low tide.

I have an on/off (non-numismatic) project to gather information on smaller islands in general as I find them fascinating. Years ago, I compiled a list of all the sea islands in the British/Irish archipelago. I can't immediately find the list, but there were thousands. My criteria for inclusion were:

- They must be surrounded by seawater (i.e. salt water). I was going to do a similar list for islands in lakes and rivers but I don't think I got round to it.
- They must have a part that is permanently above sea level (rocks that appear at low tide don't count).
- They must be completely cut off from the neighbouring landmass at some point in the normal tidal cycle (but can be joined at low tide).
- They must be named on the Ordnance Survey 1:50 000 mapping. (This proved a more useful way of weeding out fairly irrelevant rocks and stacks than simply going by size: there are some very small specks that are very significant, such as Rockall and the Old Man of Hoy, that would disappear from the list otherwise.)

They do not need to be reachable only by water - bridges or causeways are ignored. Artificial islands that are actively created as such do count (e.g. Peberholm halfway along the Öresund tunnel/bridge - I can't think of a UK/Ireland example) but those created by default by the construction of canals don't. They also do not need to be inhabited, either currently or in the past.

[gerard974]

Hello
my island is a land surrounded by water the others I do not know and we have no bridge for to arrive on . Is a good reply ?
Gerard

is jut a joke ,i think that you understand

[Alan71]

Australia is a continent, therefore not an island. See above. Continents are not defined as having several states: A continent is one of several very large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents geopolitically.

From Wikipedia: Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands.

BTW, Oceania is defined as a region, but not a continent.

Peter

Hmm, sounds like a bit of a dodgy interpretation.  Great Britain is an island but also includes numerous smaller islands.  Australia is at least an island continent (and even then only because of its size).  No other populated continent is one political country.

[Alex Island]

I decided to tell why I collect all the islands. Because for me this one is quite obvious.
At the very beginning of my passion for collecting coins, I began to collect the whole world,
one coin from each country. I bought a book with geographical atlases and different scales, and spent many days carefully examining all geographical areas. After a few years, I collected one coin from each existing country,
with the exception of a few particularly difficult cases.

And after that, I noticed that there are also islands for which there are coins too, and I also tried to find one coin from each island. I sold coins of all countries, and began to buy only coins for all existing islands. I started with the coins that are then very easy to find - this is Cuba, Sri Lanka, Madagaskar, Cyprus, Seychelles, Aruba ...

I then managed to collect in the collection about 150 coins of different geographical islands.
All this happened a long time ago, even when I was a student, and my late father also helped andьwas interested in this topic.
After I collected all this, for almost 20 years I forgot numismatics, and never again did not plan to be interested in coins and islands again. The collected coins just lay like a memory about my father and I have fun and difficult hobbies ..

Everything changed an interesting case. Once, several years ago, I went into a bank branch and saw coins behind a glass Sandwich Islands, and others that I have not seen before. I did not buy them. Instead, I returned home, and began using the Internet to find out what other new coins for the islands appeared from the time when I finished my collection. And at the same time find out what else was there, what I didn't know about before and didn't even imagine, because the necessary directories were not available before.

I saw 100, 200, 300 completely new for me geographical names and coins, and I became interesting again. I decided to save photos of such coins, and when their number exceeded several thousand, I began to sort them by region and by various types.

In the end, it became a hobby, because I realized that the coins for the islands are purposefully, as far as I know, in the world nobody has collected yet. Making my own illustrated list or catalog has turned into a hobby for me. I do not collect the coins themselves, do not sell them, and do not buy. The question for me is rather to collect complete geographic and numismatic list.

I never exactly counted the number of islands collected with different names represented on coins, medals, and various types of tokens. But judging by the number of folders and files, it's about about 7000 geographical islands. In my opinion, this is quite fun and exciting.

I collect all the information about it, and I try to draw attention to this with my publications.

[Figleaf]

Collecting coins is like that for many of us. You start with an obvious field and reach a point where it becomes boring. You lose interest or re-direct your collecting focus until that starts to get boring and the cycle starts again. There are variations on the cycle, but the pattern is always there.

You have two variations in the pattern. First, it is rare that two succeeding generations have a numismatic interest. It is much more usual that numismatics skips a generation. Second, you go for pictures, rather than coins. That is not unheard of, but mostly, people want pictures as a by-product of the collection.

Following up on that thought, my recommendation to you would be to go in depth. Make your own definition of what an island is. This thread may help.

Research the islands you have coins or tokens of with the help of a data base with columns for e.g. size, population, in a lake, river, delta, sea or ocean, main island in an archipelago or subsidiary island. Research the pieces you found. Can they be categorised? The list of pieces can be another data base.This page may be helpful.

Relate the two lists. This means Excel is no longer sufficient for your needs. Data base software can usually import Excel files, though. Is there a relation between size and categories of tokens? I bet there are many, e.g. no transport tokens on islands, except when they are large or very steep" or "small islands or river islands have many food and drink tokens". Some of these relations will surprise, like island airports.

That's just a recommendation, though. Do your own thing. The more important goal is that you remain motivated and interested in your islands.

Peter

[gerard974]

hELLO
By the way is not Damanski island problems on the boarder  china urss ,
best regards Gerard

[Alex Island]

hELLO
By the way is not Damanski island problems on the boarder  china urss ,
best regards Gerard

Hello Gerard!

My collection contains more than 15 options for medals and signs for Damansky Island.
And not only from the Soviet or Russian side, but also from the Chinese side there are also 5 medals about this island..

[malj1]

During WW2 my father was a bombardier on an ack-ack gun on the Isle of Dogs in London where the army had a anti aircraft battery site.

Not really an island although perhaps it was at one time?

[Alex Island]

During WW2 my father was a bombardier on an ack-ack gun on the Isle of Dogs in London where the army had a anti aircraft battery site.
Not really an island although perhaps it was at one time?

Is that a coin of that island? :

[malj1]

Yes and only one listed in Williamson.

[FosseWay]

I don't know. The modern Isle of Dogs is here, on the north bank of the Thames where the river creates a loop that has been cut off by the creation of docks. Before being incorporated into administrative London, it was part of Essex. I don't think it counts as a real island in any case, since as far as I can see the continuous cut through the peninsula to create the docks is man-made.

Southwark is on the south bank of the river, more or less opposite the City of London.

Did Southwark have some kind of administrative control over parts of the the north bank in the 17th century?

Edit: The "I don't know" is a reply to Alex Island's question about whether this is the same Isle of Dogs - Malcolm's reply appeared while I was typing.