What is the largest island located in the Indian Ocean?

Madagascar is the largest island located in the Indian Ocean.

The island lies about 400 kilometres off southeastern Africa, east of Mozambique, with the Mozambique Channel separating it from the mainland. It covers roughly 587,000 square kilometres, making it the world’s fourth-largest island after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo.

Madagascar’s position and long geological isolation help explain its extraordinary biodiversity. It separated from the Indian subcontinent tens of millions of years ago, and many of its plants and animals—including lemurs—are found nowhere else in the wild.

A common mix-up is to choose Sumatra or Borneo because both are enormous islands associated with the Indian Ocean region. They are generally classified as islands of Southeast Asia, while Madagascar is the clear largest island within the Indian Ocean itself. Sri Lanka is also in the ocean but is far smaller.