Talk:List of divided islands

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] "Islands" created by rivers

I know this is a quibble, but I just wanted to put it on the record. The Orinoco River splits into two branches near Tamatama, in Amazonas state, Venezuela. One branch flows north and disembogues in Delta Amacuro state. The other (the Casiquiare canal) flows south and joins the Rio Negro, which meets the Amazon near Manaus, Brazil. In this way, all of the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana) and substantial parts of Brazil and Venezuela are surrounded by river-waters and the Atlantic Ocean, in effect forming a kind of island. If geographers actually considered it an island, at over a million km.², it would be the second-largest in the world. Gwil 06:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

FYI, there's discussion on this issue at island. Newyorkbrad 16:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cuba

I've removed this from the list; Guantanamo is merely land leased from the Cubans by the USA, as is done by many states in many countries. Robdurbar 11:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Good call there! =J //Big Adamsky 15:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

There is a merge proposal which has been overhastily implemented by redirecting this well-established page to a shorter newer page. I have undone it so that the proper procedures can be followed: to avoid hiding the edit history here, the new page should be deleted and this page moved to there. jnestorius(talk) 13:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Support the move; I think it was probably done innocently presuming that there would be no quibbles and therefore no proposal neccesary. --Robdurbar 15:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Support the merge. Since this is the older page, we should probably just redirect the newer page here. The newer page doesn't have much edit history -- the only major additions were the creation of the page and one edit adding content (both by the same editor). Polaron | Talk 02:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aral Sea Island

What about the island in the Aral Sea divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan?

If you have a good source of information about it, put it on the list! (I never knew there was such an island, but of course until a few years ago it would have been entirely within the USSR.) Newyorkbrad 20:42, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Articles on source Asia Water Water say the island, Vozrozhdeniye, is shared by the two - but it also says that the shrinking of the Aral Sea means it is no longer an island, but is connected permanently to the mainland. - DavidWBrooks 21:15, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Even though it is no longer an island shouldn't it still be under historical examples?

That sounds like it could be a good place for this one. Maybe add the additional information that DavidWBrooks gave and a link to the source.
I guess if we want to be technical, the question is whether the island was divided anytime before Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan became part of the USSR - or whether it's been an island since 1991 when they became independent ... since between the 1920's and 1991 it wouldn't have been divided.... Newyorkbrad 21:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added it based on the info at Vozrozhdeniya Island. Don't forget that Wikipedia is a useful source of information! jnestorius(talk) 22:23, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, man, don't use that site for a source; it's not reliable. - DavidWBrooks 23:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary islands

I wonder if the changing level of the Aral Sea has led to any previously submerged areas on the border surfacing as new islands. There are also lakes with fluctuating water levels, like Lake Chad, which might sometimes have temporary binational islands. Another plausible contender is Sarygamysh Lake between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, looking at the max and min levels on this MSN map. Possibly also Lake Kara Kaldy on the Syr Darya jnestorius(talk) 22:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Unofficial Flag of Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland flag used in this article is not an official flag - see article Flag of Northern Ireland. Its use here is controversial, not in line with Wikipedia neutrality on such issues and should therefore be deleted. Peter Clarke 11:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually wonder why there are any flags at all. It all seems repetitive and useless. 71.102.144.120 00:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possibly divided?

I'm travelling the Finland-Russia border loooking for divided lake (or river) islands; there are some candidates where the map scale is too large to rule definitively:

  • Possibly Hopeasaari in Korpijärvi [1]
    • IBS 74 says "the frontier [...] passes over the Korpijarvi and Suojarvi lakes so that the northern island in Lake Korpijarvi remains on the Finnish side." jnestorius(talk) 23:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • In Melaselänjärvi (as well as the sure things listed): Karpankari [2]
  • Possibly one or more in Virmajarvi [3]
jnestorius(talk) 02:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, in the sea, Koiluoto, Jähi, and a third unnamed islet, in the Gulf of Finland, seem from these maps

to be divided between Flag of Finland Finland and Flag of Russia Russia. jnestorius(talk) 06:31, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

U.S-Canada contenders:

What happened to the divided islands in the Lake of the Woods? The NASA imagery access from the Northwest_Angle article shows number divided islands. --Kvasir 09:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe there are any. Images that superimpose map features on satellite images never align them perfectly. Check out The topozone maps; it's clear following the border that it avoids all islands. jnestorius(talk) 14:14, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Belarus-Latvia:

[edit] worldislandinfo contenders

Only two islands at Islands Divided by International Borders from www.worldislandinfo.com are not currrently listed on this wiki page. These are:

  • 14. island in Purnujarvi, 61°15'N, 29°10'E, Finland - Russia, c. 40 acres/c. 15 ha. 61°15′N, 29°10′E is in Lake Hiijarvi, [9]. Purnujarvi is west of Hiijarvi and entirely within Finland [10]. I think the island being referred to is Suurisaari within Hiijarvi, but the border expressly avoids this islands (see the map, and also International Boundary Study No. 74: "Hence the frontier runs in an agreed straight line in a northeasterly direction to a point on the western shore of the Karsalampi pond, intersecting Lake Hienjarvi (Hiidenjarvi) and leaving the Suurisaari island on the Finnish side."). I think this is just a mistake from using a map with too large a scale. (Google Earth draws a straight line border through Suurisaari.) worldislandinfo: A Note on Sources
  • 21. middle island, Södra Boksjön, Norway - Sweden, 0.2 acres/0.1 ha. The space between the 2 bigger islands doesn't contain any land visible on any maplink I found, except possibly as a tiny speck on norgesglasset at 59.0153763° N 11.7053619° E. That speck seems too small even for 0.1 hectare, but, assuming it is a piece of land, the map doesn't show the full extent of the Swedish portion. I'm reluctant to add it without better evidence.

BTW the coor template link is currently broken: I hope it comes back soon... jnestorius(talk) 00:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] USSR military maps

I added the following sections, based on USSR military maps from the 1980s, but I've removed them again:

I removed them as I'm not sure they are still correct, or indeed ever were.

  1. The former Soviet republics may have renegotiated borders (with each other or Afghanistan) since independence.
  2. The islands may be shifting sandbanks as in the Ganges chars.
  3. The Afghan border marked in the maps contradicts the International Boundary Study[6], which says it follows the thalwegs. The map border appears to be the midpoint of the various braided channels.
  4. The 1:100,000 maps quoted somewhat contradict the 1:200,000 maps; for example the TAJ-UZB island off the tripoint on the 100k map[3] but includes the tripoint with AFG in the 200k map[7].
  5. The map sites also keep disappearing. I was under the impression the maps were out of copyright, but it looks like someone is hunting them down. (Not that that renders them inadmissable; you can always check them out in person in UC Berkeley.)
  6. (Also, many of the Flag of Tajikistan Tajikistan-Flag of Afghanistan Afghanistan islands are in the Panj River, not the Amu Darya which is name for the lower reaches.)

jnestorius(talk) 20:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compliments

As a past contributor to this article i haven't visited this article in a few months. Wow! Congrats with the flags and percentage counts. Excellent additions including many lesser known entries on the list! Good job! --Kvasir 06:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

(This section is here because some sections have been removed from the Main page to the Talk page)

  1. ^ USSR Military (1986). Map K-42-130, Kokand environs (TIF) (Russian). topomaps.eu. Retrieved on 2006-12-14. shows five islands; Map K-42-129 Kamyshkurgon environs, from the same site, shows six more.
  2. ^ Coordinates for Syr Darya border region are around 40.58° N 70.6° E
  3. ^ a b USSR Military (1986). Map J-42-100, Kaldar environs (TIF) (Russian). topomaps.eu. Retrieved on 2006-12-15.
  4. ^ Coordinates for Amu Darya Tajik/Uzbek shared island: 37.185° N 67.79° E
  5. ^ Islands are visible on most of the 1:100000 sheets covering the border, available at: USSR Military (1980-3). Tadjikistan topographic map set. topomaps.eu. Retrieved on 2006-12-15..
  6. ^ Office of the Geographer, Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1983-09-15). International Boundary Study No. 26 (Revised) – Afghanistan – U.S.S.R. Boundary. United States Department of State, 7. “It then follows the thalweg (main channel) of the Amu Darya and two of its headstreams, the Pyandzh (Ab-E-Panj) and the Pamir, for 1,220 kilometers upstream to Lake Sari-Qul (Victori).” 
  7. ^ USSR Military. Map J-42-26 (TIF) (Russian). topomaps.eu. Retrieved on 2006-12-15.

[edit] Pollatawny

Searching Google for Pollatawny leads me only to this page, I would expect it mentioned somewhere else, does this place really exist?

It's a tiny islet in a small lake. You can see it here by searching for townland Tober (DED Cavangarden, E.A. Donegal) and zooming in on Lough Vearty. I wouldn't link to that site on the article page as it's not intended as a general map reference; but it should convince you the place exists. jnestorius(talk) 13:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cuba

Should Cuba be listed? The U.S. controls Guantanamo Bay. – Quadell (talk) (random) 02:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Already mentioned in the "See also" section of the article and dicussed earlier on this Talk: page jnestorius(talk) 10:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I don't know how I missed that. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cyprus

I've somewhat undone User:3meandEr's recent edit regarding Cyprus.

  • The earlier edit summary that "Cyprus for instance is not separated by an international border as such" is incorrect in that Akrotiri and Dhekelia are recognized by Cyprus and internationally as British sovereign territory. This fact also obviates the need to qualify "divided ... by an international border" with "or de facto occupation." If we open the door to de facto occupations, cases like Guantanamo Bay and Tamil Eelam start to muddy the waters further.
  • I agree that "both POVs need to be stated" though I'm not sure POV is the best term; de jure/de facto seems to be more accurate. In any case, I think listing Cyprus under both 3 countries and 2 countries achieves this. That's not to say there is no room for improvement; see the following

[edit] Current

Currently the listing under "three countries" just points to the listing under "two countries", which gives both breakdowns, thus:

[edit] Divided among three countries

[edit] Divided between two countries

[edit] Alternative

An alternative would be to give the relevant breakdown under each, thus:

[edit] Divided among three countries

[edit] Divided between two countries

Personally, I prefer the current version, as I think putting it all in one place avoids the danger of someone only reading one half and being irritated by the perceived imbalance/inaccuracy/incompleteness. But that's just my opinion. jnestorius(talk) 22:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)