The small patches of land surrounded by water that we call islands are quite common, at least they are on the earth; if you happen to live on one of the other planets in our solar system that are completely rocky and gassy, you likely have not seen a conventional island.
These terrestrial islands are so common that they exist within all continents and oceans and numerous lakes and rivers, in fact each US State possess at least a handful of islands. There is even an archipelago of the United States that is especially insular by nature: Hawaii.
This brings us to one of my most recent, pressing questions: does the state that entirely comprises islands, Hawaii, have more islands than most states?
To answer this question, we need to know the number of islands for each state. Surprisingly, these statistics are not that readily available online, yet I did find a few sources. The problem is that many of these sources are conflicting. I decided to link two of them below, though I mainly relied on the first source for my numbers and calculations.
List of States by Number of Islands
- Alaska (2,714)
- Maine (1904)
- Florida (1744)
- New York (903)
- Massachusetts (682)
- Minnesota (584)
- California (517)
- Michigan (516)
- Georgia (480)
- Louisiana (467)
- Tennessee (456)
- Wisconsin (435)
- Washington (415)
- North Carolina (412)
- South Carolina (382)
- Connecticut (347)
- Maryland (340)
- Illinois (339)
- Oregon (327)
- Virginia (306)
- New Hampshire (272)
- Texas (259)
- Missouri (251)
- Pennsylvania (237)
- Alabama (224)
- New Jersey (211)
- Ohio (160)
- Hawaii (148)
- Arkansas (140)
- Idaho (131)
- Montana (115)
- Kentucky (113)
- Iowa (109)
- Rhode Island (107)
- Mississippi (101)
- Vermont (76)
- South Dakota (75)
- Nebraska (70)
- Delaware (69)
- West Virginia (58)
- Indiana (54)
- Nevada (37)
- Wyoming (35)
- Arizona (33)
- Utah (28)
- Oklahoma (27)
- North Dakota (16)
- Colorado (12)
- New Mexico (8)
- Kansas (3)
Well, there you have it, Alaska is the state with the most islands. This fact partially caught me off guard, but it should have been apparent since Alaska’s vastness also causes the state to have more land area, water area, lakes, rivers, and coastline than any other state.
What about the state that has the most islands per given area? If we divide each number of islands by its respective state’s area, we find that Rhode Island has the greatest island density (about 1 island per 10 square miles). It seems counterintuitive and too ideal that the only state to have the English word for island in its name would be the one with the highest island density.
Despite these facts, it could be argued that the most insular state is actually Hawaii, since the state’s land is exclusively composed of islands.
Which state do you think is the most insular?
Onward American 