Talk:List of islands of Scotland

Untitled
To the southern inhabitants of Scotland, the state of the mountains and islands is equally known with that of Borneo and Sumatra: of both they have only heard a little, and guess the rest. Samuel Johnson, 1703.

South Walls and all that
The land areas used in both the list and the Infoboxes are all Haswell-Smith's estimates. We are, I think, agreed that his definition is flawed: "an Island is a piece of land or group of pieces of land which is entirely surrounded by water at Lowest Astronomical Tide and to which there is no permanent means of dry access" on the grounds that the last clause excludes Skye etc.

However, there area various islands on the article list which also fail his definition as they are tidal (e.g. Davaar, Baleshare, Shuna) .This only becomes an issue for the area rank of the islands after about No. 50, which is roughly where South Walls would be. My understanding is that until about the beginning of the 20th century South Walls was a tidal island but is now connected to Hoy by a causeway. For consistency it would ideally be treated as an island in its own right, but I can't find a reference that provides a separate land area for it. (Uncharacteristically Haswell-Smith does not supply one although he does for other tidal islands).

There are various options, but it seems to me that the most credible and consistent one is to:
 * a) define an island as 'land that is surrounded by seawater on a daily basis, but not necessarily at all stages of the tide, excluding human devices such as bridges and causeways.'
 * b) Provide South Walls with an assumed area of 'circa 850 ha'. (It is easy to see from any map e.g. that it is very close in size to its immediate neighbour Flotta, which is 876 ha).

I will proceed on this basis unless there are objections. Ben MacDui (Talk) 19:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * This sounds like a good plan to me. Warofdreams talk 00:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Island population ranks

 * I have retrieved the ranked populations at Island populations by rank.
 * I will begin the ranking by area if flagging enthusiasm permits. Ben MacDui (Talk) 10:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Now begun here, which should allow consistent use of area ranks. I will fill in any missing blanks as required.

Wording in the lead section
"A feature of modern island life is the low crime rate and they are considered to be amongst the safest places to live in the UK."

Isn't this more of a lack of an undesirable feature?--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 11:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Depends which way you look at it I suppose. If you have an alternative suggestion for the phrasing, please feel free to present it for discussion. Ben MacDui(Talk) / (Walk)  13:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

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What Highland group?
I notice use of "Highland" under Group. There are various islands and groups of islands within the Highland local authority area, but I know of no single Highland group of islands. Laurel Bush (talk) 16:46, 10 December 2007 (UTC).


 * "Highland" islands seems to be a group created to include islands in the Highland region. It's an artifical group created because it is useful, nothing more. Lurker  (said · done) 18:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * That is also how I view the group. Let's continue unless anyone can suggest a better name for the group. Of course the Summer Isles are in Highland Region, but have an established group name. Finavon (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Would make more sense to me to use another column in the table to link all the islands to local authority areas, and to use None under Group where this is approriate. Laurel Bush (talk) 11:57, 11 December 2007 (UTC).

Eilean Dearg (or Eilean Dearg, Loch Riddon)
I'm not an islands expert, but someone might like to sort out this island. It appears in the Islands of the Clyde template, as redlink Eilean Dearg, and is listed in the Islands of the Clyde article, under Bute, as relink Eilean Dearg, Loch Riddon, but doesn't seem to be in this main List at all - except, presumably, under a different name, different spelling, English version, etc! Over to you, experts. PamD (talk) 16:05, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See the reply on the talk page for Islands of the Clyde. Lurker  (said · done) 17:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks - but I'm still wondering why it isn't listed in this page too! PamD (talk) 23:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Now listed - as a Castle Island. It is somewhat smaller than most of us are working on just yet. Finavon (talk) 00:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Crannogs
Hey, what about crannogs? Those are islands in lochs in Scotland that were formed artificially by semi-prehistoric humans as budget-type castles--build a platform on poles in the water and draw up the connecting boards on the corresponding bridge to land, at night. Over time, there were actual islands build up, no longer on poles, and these islands are very noticeable as unnatural islands in glacier-carved lochs that wouldn't otherwise have any islands at all. At least according to the Crannog Museum on Loch Tay, visited recently. Don't these deserve mention? There are a finite number of them, too, could probably be listed easily. doncram (talk) 05:31, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

You are right in that they definitely deserve a mention, although as wholly artificial in nature I think they fall outwith the scope of the list. I've added a link to List of artificial islands and will add something here. They could certainly be listed although the main article suggests 600 of them in Scotland alone. If you'd like any help in starting a list, just let me know. Ben  Mac  Dui  17:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, i like what u added. doncram (talk) 18:12, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Smaller offshore islands
This list is a bit random and given that (I hope!) all islands are now listed in the archipelago lists it might be useful to have some minimum criteria for inclusion here. Size, notability and existence of a blue link might be amongst them, but they are not easy to categorise, or indeed measure in many instances. Ben  Mac  Dui  09:33, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

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 * Archived sources removed as originals can be linked to new location. Finavon (talk) 22:31, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

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Adding island groups or archipelagos to main table
Hi, The main table doesn't have a column for group or archipelago - would it be okay for me to add this? Jonathan Ellis (talk) 17:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)