Talk:List of islands by highest point

Units

What are the units here? Meters? · rodii · 21:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, metres. --Mark J 08:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I started a list very similar to this in my workspace back at the end of 2004 but never got around to taking it public. Glad you have done so - I think it makes for a very interesting list. One comment I would make is that I think it would be better to keep the information strictly physical geography related and not include names of countries. I find the flags especially a distraction from the important data. Oska 01:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

RENAMING THIS PAGE

this page is currently called "List of Islands by Highest Point" but this is very misleading, as this page is really an assortment of Landmasses. It may be appropriate to split out the list of islands from the other landmasses, as that may be useful as a distinct group. However, right now it is "one size fits all" and as such it is not as useful.

We (I mean "the English language") desperately need a word for what dictionaries say "island" means, until they come to the bit about "continents". Perhaps we should call it a "Walandter"? The original version of this page made its motivation crystal clear: it is a list of Walandters (land surrounded by water, ok?) in their order of height. The distinction between "island" and "continent" is not crystal clear: there may be tectonic reasons for saying Australia is a "continent" not an "island", but the boundary between Europe and Asia in particular appears to be more or less arbitrary. So the "continent/island" distinction is at least somewhat artificial/political.

The motivation for a list of Walandters is the same as that for the "prominence" of mountains. It has no concern for plate tectonics or politics, but only topography (except in the borderline exclusion of artificial waterways, so Africa is regarded as part of the same Walandter as Eurasia, and the Peloponnese is too). The third most prominent mountain, Denali/McKinley in Alaska has Aconcagua (Andes) as its "parent", because North and South America are part of the same Walandter.

I think it quite unreasonable to say this is an "assortment" of landmasses: it's a list of Walandters by height, messed up by having the continent/island distinction imposed on it. I think the list should be returned to its original form, so that Australia appears in its correct order (61st, I think). I accept that we have to find a title which will deter people from messing up the order: "List of highest points of landmasses" or whatever.

There is another amusing technical problem: I can point to at least 20 islands belonging 7th in the overall list, between Taiwan and Sumatra. They are all over 3811 metres high, because they are in Lake Titicaca. And there will be many others around the world. I do think it would be more sensible really to have a word "selanda" and another word "lalandke" (and some wonderful things like lalalakendkes and lalalalandkendkes...) but more realistically the "height" should be explicitly noted as the height of the highest point above the surrounding water. I don't expect there are any lalandkes of significant height; I could only find Taal volcano in Luzon, which is around 395 m high.

Imaginatorium (talk) 20:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It is also misleading because you expect to come to a list of islands and the first thing you see is Africa-Eurasia, which is certainly not an island. It is 3 traditionally-denoted continents, comprising something like 80% of the Earth's landmass, listed as a single entity - very useful.

I believe this page was probably originally a list of islands but somehow got diluted and contaminated by later additions of people who were well-meaning but very unclear about the focus of this page. However, it needs serious attention to remove and re-edit the material so that "Landmasses", i.e. continents, are not included in the content. Either that, or it's title needs to be changed. Stevenmitchell 18:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Is there really any need? There are only 4 landmasses (Africa-Eurasia, Americas, Antarctica, Australia) that are not islands, so they hardly clutter the list. Possibly a note: ? EdC 01:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The distinction between landmasses and islands is not clear, but small islands are not landmasses. Perhaps "List of landmasses and islands by highest point"? EdC 15:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

List of islands by area has landmasses for comparison. EdC 15:47, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS to move page to suggested title, per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

---

I agree that this page should have its name changed. Most of the "Islands" on this page arent even islands! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.110.109.214 (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

Most? Surely you exaggerate. I count four, possibly only three by some standards.

Oppose move. –EdC 15:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The entry at Wikipedia:Requested moves#9 January 2007 seems broken. Do you need assistance fixing it? –EdC 15:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe that either the name of the page needs to change, or the page needs a complete re-write, with headers changed and entries removed. Any decent enyclopedia would not have things that aren't islands on a a page which lists islands by height! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.109.66.150 (talk) 14:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

As this has come up again, I oppose the move. All but four of the things on this page are islands, and it seems desireable that the four continental land masses should be included for comparison and completeness. Nor do I think that "the page needs a complete re-write, with headers changed and entries removed": it looks fine to me. — ras52 15:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why User:Solitaire190 (a bot) made this move a few hours ago, but as it was done by a bot rather than a person, and done against the clear consensus on this page, I have chosen to revert this without going through the usual mechanism. Obviously if something sentient, having read this thread, chooses to make the move, that's a different matter. — ras52 23:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record User:Solitaire190 was a fake bot account that was blocked for page move vandalism. Discussion still stands with no clear consensus yet.¤~Persian Poet Gal ^(talk) 23:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. Obviously I'll respect any legitimate move even if I don't personally agree with it. — ras52 07:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Feet column

User:Stevenmitchell added a "feet" column. I reverted because:

• it means more work for contributors
• it does not add any information
• conversion between units is (relatively) easy.

I would appreciate the matter being discussed on this page before Stevenmitchell or anyone else attempts to re-add the column. EdC 01:00, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I added the foot column because a "meter" column has absolutely zero use in the United States. We don't know what a meter is and all efforts to bring the metric system into the United States have deceased more than 25 years ago. I changed it so that readers of Wikipedia in the U.S., as a source of information, can actually make use of it. Otherwise, U.S. readers will have to take that information and locate U.S. Customary conversion charts on the Internet, make the conversion and then be able to apply that information. Since this is supposed to be an encyclopedia and should provide as much information as possible, it should have the conversion already done. I didn't know we were trying to save steps for lazy "Wikipedians". As it stands now, if you live in the U.S. and need this information, you would be better off to own a Britannica encyclopedia. Stevenmitchell 06:33, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

USian scientists and engineers understand metric, as do USian geographers. However, I have reassessed my position and am willing to countenance a "feet" column, as long as it contains accurate and up-to-date information. EdC 15:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Stevenmitchell. This is not the place to argue the feet/meter debate (much less why the US hasn't adopted metric). The point of Wikipedia is to provide information and US users are a large portion of the people who read it.

{{sofixit}}! Writing a Python (or Perl, if that floats your boat) script to convert the tables should be trivial. Or do it in Calc, or even by hand. If you provide a feet column, I won't remove it. EdC 20:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

300 million people use feet as a measurement to exclude it is rather arrogant especially when someone takes the trouble to add it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chazran (talk • contribs)

Em. Not to make an issue out of this, but you're commenting on a discussion that's 2 years ago old. If you want to add one of the Category:Conversion templates to all the heights to allow the user to set his own measurement/unit preference, then nobody will stop you. As EdC said two years ago, if anyone has a problem with the current set-up, then please go ahead and update it. (Though I would point out that, while you note that 300 million people use imperial/US customary units/whatever, this represents only about 4% of the world's population - and (at last check) meters (and the SI standard in general) were the primary or sole system of measurement used practically everywhere - with notable exceptions in Burma, Liberia, and the US.) Guliolopez (talk) 18:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Is Guam an ´island nation´?

I can´t figure out why you include Guam on the list of "Other notable islands" as an ´island nation´. Well, you could do so, but then you also have to include other US dependent terrirories, such as Puerto Rico and Northern Mariana Islands. Or even French dependent areas such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, New Caledonia, French Southern Antarcyic Lans (which is an island group). You might also include the Norwegian territory Svalbard and many others. So why (just?) Guam? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.108.160.249 (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Because they haven't been added yet. There's no reason not to add main islands of dependent territories; why don't you add some? –EdC 14:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Sovereignty

It doesn't seem to me that saying the South Shetland Islands are British is NPOV, considering several nations either dispute or do not recognize this claim. Sowelilitokiemu 02:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not disagree with you, but in fact there are several territories which are disputed, and still controlled by one of the countries who claim them. The British Antarctic Territory is a de facto territory with its own flag. But of course, anyone can change this flag to the more neutral Antarctic flag. Antipoeten 15:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Rügen

Someone has added Rügen, which is somewhat "wrong", as neither Rügen nor Germany are "island nations". Still, it might be a good idea to add the largest island mountain of each country, so I will start changing the list according to this. Antipoeten 21:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Islands of Montenegro

I agree on deleting the island mountain of Vranjina as this is a lake island. I don´t think lake islands belong here at all. Therefore I instead add the highest sea island mountain of Montenegro, which is in Sveti Nikola Island. Antipoeten 15:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

(1) Lord Howe Island; (2) Island nations

(1) Lord Howe Island is not in the list of "Other notable island mountains". Would someone like to add it? I do not feel confident doing it myself. Its highest point is 875-m (2,870-ft) Mount Gower.

(2) I don't understand the comments about Guam and Rügen, as the list of "Other notable island mountains" never purports to consist exclusively of island nations, right?

Simplifier 05:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Cyprus

Regarding Cyprus:

The highest point in the island of Cyprus is in the territory of the state of Cyprus and NOT in the UK controled military bases of Dekelia and Akrotiri. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.88.116.134 (talk) 22:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is disputing this. That's why Dekelia and Akrotiri are listed in the "Other countries or territories on island" column and not in the "Country or territory containing highest point" column. I would have thought this was self evident. Oh, and by the way, your comments might be considered with more credibility if you register. — ras52 (talk) 22:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion

Is there any consensus on which islands should be included in the Other notable island mountains section? The section has been steadily growing over time, and personally I think it has too much on it and ishas too much of a Anglo-centric bias. Personally, I would restrict it to just the highest point of each country (per List of Countries) where that is also the highest point of the island on which it is situated. That would mean removing the likes of Königsstuhl on Rügen, Germany (as it is not the highest point in Germany). It would also mean removing all of the British Isles except Great Britain, Ireland, Man, Sark (containing the highest point of the Bailiwick of Guernsey) and Jersey. — ras52 (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I broadly agree - but I wouldn't be quite so gung-ho. I'd leave in Guernsey - surely it is notable as it's clearly the chief island of the territory (having the same name) and it contains the territory's capital. Perhaps also retain any islands over a certain size or population, regardless of whether they contain the country/territory's highest point - these should also make the island notable. Starting suggestion - 5,000km² or 100,000 people?? Bazonka (talk) 18:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

You have a good point with Guernsey. How about also including the highest point on the country's principal island / land mass providing that it is the highest point on the island. That would include Guernsey but not Rügen, Germany. Of course, it would still leave open the question of what the principal island is. For New Zealand, about three quarters of the population live on North Island, although South Island is larger and contains Mount Cook, the highest point in New Zealand.

I think that including all islands larger than 5,000 km² or with more than 100,000 inhabitants will include too many places. There are 116 islands in the former category (see List of islands by area), and somewhere around 150 in the latter (see List of islands by population). The former list is heavily dominated by the Canadian Arctic, whilst the latter is dominated by the islands of Southeast Asia. — ras52 (talk) 14:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I think all the 'unnamed point' under 1000m should be removed. If a mountain doesn't even have a name, surely it's not a notable island mountain. Points below 100m surely don't qualify as mountains.AtikuX (talk) 10:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Continent

This article lists highest points by continent, with only 4 continents. Anyone know why only four continents are listed? Gubernatoria (talk) 05:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

They're not continents — they're continental landmasses. The difference being that while North and South America are sometimes (often?) regarded as two separate continents, they're a single continental landmass because they are connected by land. Similarly, Africa, Europe and Asia are a single continental landmass. — ras52 (talk) 19:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I see you've changed the article anyway: I guess that's called being bold. Per Wikipedia's bold, revert, discuss policy, I have reverted you. If you still disagree, you should now discuss it here. Also, please don't characterise the actions of someone who happens to disagree with you as vandalism. It isn't. —ras52 (talk) 15:01, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You changed the entry without any discussion. This was open for discussion for over a month before you decided to make changes without any discussion. Other contributors, in talk off this page agreed by continent would be more appropriate. This was the consensus and there was no other objection. You changed the article withou any discussion. I am reverting it to how it was. If you change it again you will be reported for edit-warring. Gubernatoria (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The article has used continental landmasses since day one. The article stayed that way for 3 years, 3 months and 8 days until you made this edit on 21 June — i.e. less than three weeks ago during which time there has been no talk page discussion whatsoever. So it strikes me that the status quo is very clearly the landmasses; and anyway, what relevance do the continental high points have to a list of islands? Continents aren't islands: continental landmassess are. Quite how you can accuse me of reverting without discussion, I don't know given that the comment you appear to be responding to is, err..., discussion. I also notice that I'm not the only person reverting you — so is Bazonka. I'm going to revert again, though I shan't revert a third time today — hopefully someone else will if they agree with me. — ras52 (talk) 15:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. This article is about islands, and continental land-masses are, in effect, just enormous islands. The highest points of North America and Europe are irrelevant here. Bazonka (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Gubernatoria, I have just realised that you labelled your revert to my edit as "vandalism". What an absolutely outragious claim. It is fair enough to disagree with an edit; but it is something quite different to claim vandalism. I am offended. I hope you can adequately justify your egregious statement. Bazonka (talk) 16:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

If you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent) (The continental landmass of Australia includes New Guinea) the highest point would be Puncak Jaya at 4,884 m (16,024 ft). Not Mount Kosciuszko at 2,228 m (7,310 ft) (which is the highest point in Australia - the country).

Islands for which we don't have information on highest point

If there is an island that you would like to see on the article list but haven't been able to find information on its hightest point to add it yourself please list it below. Others may be able to find the information and add it to the article page.

• Madura

Highest point of Gran Canaria

My understanding is that the highest point of Gran Canaria is Pico de las Nieves, and not Pozo de las Nieves. 94.171.166.73 (talk) 11:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)Malcolm

Request to move "Coulman Island" from "Over 2,000 meters" to "Other notable island mountains"

I noticed that the highest point on Coulman Island is only 1,998 meters, so I am requesting to move it down to "Other notable island mountains." Are there any objections to this? I had changed it before, but I decided to change it back so I don't get reported for vandalism. Luvrboy1 (talk) 13:55, 29 March 2012 (UTC)Jared

Be WP:BOLD. I'm sure no-one would accuse you of vandalism for what seems like a perfectly logical and reasonable change. Bazonka (talk) 11:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Title of this page

I just restored the "continental landmasses" section, as per the lead. The title of this page is a problem: clearly the page was written to illustrate the relations between the heights of different areas of land entirely surrounded by water, and while some have the mental agility to interpret "island" in this sense, others do not. The article is about topography, not politics (division into Europe and Asia) or plate tectonics (classification of Austral(as)ia as a "continent" rather than an island, cf. Greenland). Therefore, it would serve its purpose best if one could easily see (for example) where Australia comes in the pecking order by height of areas of land surrounded by water: 61st, I think. So of course there is no real need for a separate table with the three highest areas of land surrounded by water plus the 61st. The word "island" in the title is problematic, and I suggest the best approach is to use a title avoiding it: I suggest "List of landmasses by highest point", but welcome any better ideas. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:31, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Add mountain type field

Maybe mention with an additional field, if each peak is a volcano, etc. Jidanni (talk) 14:06, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Issues with this article

Two of the main issues with this article are:

• A user has changed the heading to include all islands with a peak over 100 metres altitude (was 500). You'll find that there are many thousands of these and it's an impossible task to list them all. Better to stick to the previous limit of 500 metres.

• Most of the entries in the second table should be in the first table.---Ehrenkater (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Height / square root of (area/pi) metric

What is height/(area/pi)^0.5 listed? What is that supposed to measure? Someone should make a note of what that is. Morgenjura (talk) 21:19, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

To put it in layman's term this is a measure of the "pointiness" of the island, or in other words, how "impressive" its peak is when accounting for the "handicap" of small land area. If you can imagine expanding an island by 2 in all directions, its height would be double and its area would be double^2, quadrupled. This measure accounts for that, giving both island the same "pointiness". The pi is not crucial, the order of islands would be same without it, however it does give the measure a bit more of a "true" definition. If you have islands which were perfect cones, some quite flat cones, some very pointy, Then height/(area/pi)^0.5 would give exactly the slope of the island, A right angle cone has 45 degree slopes, and would get a value of exactly 1 in this measure, as when walking one meter horizontally to the peak you would gain 1 meter in altitude. Sure islands aren't perfect cones but having the pi gives it a bit more meaning than it would have otherwise.Just your average wikipedian (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I think all this "pointiness" stuff is dubious. Unless there is a commonly adopted definition to which reference could be made, it is all OR. (Personally I have many doubts about this "OR" business, but...) I cannot see that "pointiness" is particularly more fundamental that many other measures, such as population density, which have commonly adopted definitions. Perhaps if it were a list of "volcano islands", then then this might be a guide against the popular conception of a "volcano cone". As it stands, I suggest that this column should be removed, and invite other comments. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:17, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The height/(area/pi)^0.5 measure is very similar to population density, which is population when taking into account land area. This is max height when taking into account land area. The only difference is that the equation is a bit more complicated because we are working with 3D objects, but they are essential the same thing, one for population, the other for max height. I feel that it is a useful measurement especially for a page on the max height of different islands, and if you sort by that column and look at some of the top islands you can see it gives exactly what you would expect from a measure of "pointiness". It's not really original research, its just an equation using agreed, referenced, data on the heights and areas. It's no less objective than 1+1=2. I think removing it would be removing useful information. Perhaps renaming it to something like "height when accounting for area" and then giving the equation as a footnote, would be a possible compromise? Just your average wikipedian (talk) 05:36, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I understand your argument; but an obvious difference from (say) population density is that there is a well-known term "population density". If you were writing your own blog, then of course it might be an interesting bit of data to show (perhaps even more interesting if the four largest pieces of land entirely surrounded by water were included!) -- I just do not think it is WP-notable. There is also an obvious question about the arbitrariness of the factor of pi and the power of the power-ratio. (I am not a WP-lawyer, and I do not like lawyers, WP or otherwise, but this is also a sensible guideline.) Anyway, I hope for more opinions. Imaginatorium (talk) 08:27, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Just to clarify the power is by no means arbitrary. The power is 1/2 because area is a two dimensional concept, as it is scaled by a factor, its area increases the square of that (a 2x2 square has area 4 and a 6x6 square has area 36, a scale factor of 3, area increases by 3^2=9). height, is one dimensional, so it increases exactly with the scale. And so to equate area and height you need to either square the height or take the square root (power of 1/2) of the area, this power is 100% necessary to properly equate height and area. As mentioned before the pi gives the equation the attributes of a cone, its not completely necessary for the equation to work but I would say it is better than any other factor that could be used because it gives the resulting number more meaning, the slope of a cone. Which for some islands, like Kao island, can be somewhat seen in pictures of it (https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/kao-volcano-tonga-picture-id1055146166?s=2048x2048) Just your average wikipedian (talk) 09:02, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I think what you're trying to say is that it's the best lower bound on the average absolute slope of the island (discounting overhangs and vertical cliffs, and assuming a flat Earth) that can be derived from those two parameters. That is a potentially interesting number, but, alas, OR.

Ball's Pyramid may be an interesting example (and I'm surprised it's not included in the list).

A similar, more accessible measure may be the distance from the peak to the nearest point on the coast, or the average slope along the shortest path from the coastline to the peak. That requires more data, though. IpseCustos (talk) 09:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Ball's Pyramid is not included because I only filled the data down to islands of height 1000m, beyond that, the area data seems a bit imprecise and sometime missing. Also I think past the point 1000m the current list misses a lot of islands, so I just stopped at that point, but yes Ball's pyramid would almost certainly be the "pointiest" island of its height range. Just your average wikipedian (talk) 06:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

This is certainly a very interesting metric. Let's definitely keep it. Morgenjura (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It's an interesting metric, but I worry a little that it's WP:OR - is this metric used elsewhere outside Wikipedia? Grutness...wha? 04:33, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be something wrong in this column for Baffin Island. I see also that Tindhólmur is not in the list. Is it too small? It would score second in this column.

Disko Island is missing

The highest point of Disko Island (part of Greenland) is missing, it is 1919m high. It would have been number 83 on the list. For some reason, this list is omitting this peak, and probably other peaks too. I don't know why. 2A02:1812:D26:E800:ACDE:1180:D435:E7ED (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

 Done Declangi (talk) 08:17, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

"Other notable peaks"

I'm not sure I can see any reason why the sections "List of islands with highest point by elevation" and "Other notable island peaks" are separate. It seems to be fairly arbitrary whether a peak is in one list, the other, or both (as is the case with quite a few peaks). Is it perhaps more reasonable to merge those two sections into one longer list - if that list is too long, then separating it by size intervals (e.g., "Over 2000 metres", "1001–2000 metres", "1000 metres and under") as is done with List of islands by area, might be a more appropriate split that "Notable" and "Not quite as notable". Grutness...wha? 04:31, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

table columns

What is the column "height/(area/pi)^0.5" in the "List of islands with highest point by elevation" for? Is it a commonly used metric or something? If it is, I think some short description should be added to the table description. Otherwise, I think that column just adds visual clutter to an already large table.

I see the same issue with the "height^2/area" column of the "volcanic islands" table. Presumably, these ratios are describing the same thing (the height of the island compared to the size of the island), just in different ways. But using a different ratio to describe the same thing seems silly to me, as it makes it difficult to compare information between the lists. Again, I think a quick explanation of what this ratio is used for and by whom would be helpful. I did a quick google search and didn't find much on this. Fkldsjfkalf (talk) 22:14, 22 December 2022 (UTC)