The One Minute Geographer: Where Are The Largest Islands of the United States?

None of the hundreds of islands in the United States are large in area by world standards. The biggest island in the US ranks 75th in the world. Can you name it? It’s Hawaii’s Big Island.

Now let’s jump ahead to our 10th largest island in the United States. It’s Long Island, New York. Sandwiched in between the largest island, the Big Island of Hawaii, and the 10th ranked Long Island are eight others all in the same state. Can you guess what state?

Alaska! And here’s an even harder question if you’re ever on Jeopardy, or some other quiz show: can you name any ONE of the of these eight islands that are the largest in Alaska and in the US? You probably can do so if you live in Alaska or are familiar with the state. In fact, it’s not just among the Top 10 that Alaska stands out, but of the 50 largest islands in the United States, six are part of Hawaii and six are in other states in the continental US. All of the other 38 of the 50 largest islands in the US are in Alaska.

In this post we’ll focus on the Big 8 Islands of Alaska. Their variety will give us a pretty good idea of what most of the 30 other big (top 50) Alaska islands are like. Keep in mind that we’re just scratching the surface because Alaska has 2,670 named islands!