What is the largest island in the world (excluding continents)?

Greenland is the largest island in the world when continents are excluded. It lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, northeast of Canada and northwest of Iceland, and covers about 2.17 million square kilometres including smaller offshore islands.

More than 80 percent of Greenland is covered by the Greenland ice sheet, one of the largest bodies of ice on Earth. The ice sheet contains enough frozen water to affect global sea levels substantially if it were ever lost, although such a process would take a very long time. Coastal areas contain most of Greenland’s towns, fjords and relatively ice-free land.

The usual qualification—“excluding continents”—matters because Australia, Antarctica, the Americas and Afro-Eurasia are larger landmasses sometimes described in island terms. Geographic convention classifies them as continents, so Greenland holds the standard record for largest island.

Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, not an independent country. Its capital and largest city is Nuuk, and most of its population is concentrated along the southwest coast. The Greenlandic name Kalaallit Nunaat is commonly translated as “Land of the Kalaallit.”