Islet

Islet
An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent or tidal (i.e. surfaced reef or seamount); and may exist in the sea, lakes, rivers or any other sizeable bodies of water.
Definition
As suggested by its origin islette, an Old French diminutive of "isle", use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability.
The World Landforms website says, "An islet landform is generally considered to be a rock or small island that has little vegetation and cannot sustain human habitation", and further that size may vary from a few square feet to several square miles, with no specific rule pertaining to size.
Other terms
Ait (/eɪt/, like eight) or eyot (/aɪ(ə)t, eɪt/), a small island. It is especially used to refer to river islands found on the River Thames and its tributaries in England.
Cay or key, an islet formed by the accumulation of fine sand deposits atop a reef, especially in the Caribbean and West Atlantic. Rum Cay in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys off Florida are examples of islets.
The French suffix -hou from the Scandinavian -holm, is used for the names of some islets in the Channel Islands, such as Écréhous, Burhou, Lihou and Les Houmets, and off Normandy, such as Tatihou.
Inch, a term used especially in Scotland, from the Gaelic innis, which originally meant island, but has been supplanted to refer to smaller islands, such the islet of Inch, off St Mary's Isle Priory, Inch Kenneth, Inchkeith, Keith Inch (no longer an island) and Inchcailloch.
Motu, a reef islet formed by broken coral and sand, surrounding an atoll, especially in Polynesia, such as Motu One, Motu Nao and Motu Paahi.
River island, an islet within the current of a river, such as the Île de la Cité in Paris.
, in the sense of a type of islet, is an uninhabited landform composed of exposed rocks, lying offshore, and having at most minimal vegetation, such as Albino Rock in the Palm Island group off Queensland, Australia.
Sandbar or shoal, an exposed sandbar.
Sea stack, a thin, vertical landform jutting out of a body of water.
Skerry, a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation, especially in Ireland.
Subsidiary islets, a more technical application, is applied to small land features isolated by water, lying off the shore of a larger island. Similarly, any emergent land in an atoll is also called an islet.
Tidal island, small islands (not always islets) which lie closely off the coast of a mainland or a much larger island, being connected to it (and thus becomes a peninsula/promontory) in low tide and isolated by a channel in high tide.
In international law
Whether an islet is considered a rock or not, it can have significant economic consequences under Article 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which stipulates that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf." One long-term dispute over the status of such an islet was that of Snake Island (Black Sea).
The International Court of Justice jurisprudence however sometimes ignores islets, regardless of inhabitation status, in deciding territorial disputes; it did so in 2009 in adjudicating the Romania-Ukraine dispute, and previously in the dispute between Libya and Malta involving the islet of Filfla.
List of islets
There are thousands of islets on Earth: approximately 24,000 islands and islets in the Stockholm archipelago alone. The following is a list of example islets from around the world.
Águila Islet, the southernmost point of The Americas
Aplin Islet (Queensland)
Apia
Auster Lake Islet
Ball's Pyramid, South Pacific
Bay Islet or See Chau, Hong Kong
Bikirrin, in Majuro, Marshall Islands
Black Rock, South Atlantic
Boundary Islet, Australia
Bogskär, Finland
Briggs Islet, southeastern Australia
Bushy Islet (Queensland)
Capitancillo Islet, in Bogo City, Cebu, Philippines
Chão, in the Madeira Islands, Portugal
Cholmondeley Islet (Queensland)
Clubes Island, Brasília, Brazil
Columbretes Islands, Spain
Cone Islet, southeastern Australia
Douglas Islet (Queensland)
Dry Tortugas, Florida Keys, USA
Dugay Islet, southeastern Australia
Edwards Islet, southeastern Australia
Enekalamur in Majuro, Marshall Islands
Enemanit in Majuro, Marshall Islands
Fairway Rock, Bering Strait
Fastnet Rock, Ireland
Filfla, southern Malta
Formigas, in the Azores islands
Gáshólmur, Faroe Islands
Granite Island (South Australia), Victor Harbor, South Australia.
Galatasaray Islet, Istanbul, Turkey
Halfway Islet, Queensland, Australia
Herald Island, Arctic Ocean
Île Vierge, France
Isles of Scilly, United Kingdom
Kid Island, Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri United States
Islets of Caroline Island, in Kiribati
Islets of Mauritius
Isla de Alborán, Spain, Western Mediterranean
Jardine Islet (Queensland)
Jethou, Bailiwick of Guernsey
Keelung Islet, off the northern shore of Taiwan
Klein Bonaire, Netherlands
Kolbeinsey, Iceland
Liancourt Rocks, South Korea
Lihou, Bailiwick of Guernsey
Magra Islet (Queensland)
Mañagaha, Saipan
Martin Islet (New South Wales)
Mid Woody Islet, southeastern Australia
Milman Islet (Queensland)
Monchique Islet, Europe's westernmost point, in the Azores, Portugal
Na Mokulua, Oahu, Hawaii, United States
Noorderhaaks, off the coast of the Netherlands
Oodaaq, Greenland
Pula Ulor, Beserah, Kuantan District, Pahang, Malaysia
Parece Vela, West Pacific
Perejil Island, Strait of Gibraltar
Penguin Islet (Tasmania)
Pigeon Island, Sri Lanka
Pokonji Dol, Croatia
Velika Sestrica, Croatia
Rockall, North Atlantic
Saint Peter and Saint Paul rocks, equatorial Atlantic
Salas y Gómez, Northeast from Easter Island
Saunders Islet (Queensland)
Seacrow Islet, southeastern Australia
Shag Rocks, South Atlantic
Silver Islet, Ontario
Sinclair Islet (Queensland)
Skull Islet, in British Columbia, Canada
Star Keys/Motuhope, New Zealand
Saltholm, small Islet in Oresund west of Copenhagen
Sue Islet (Queensland)
Sumbiarholmur, Faroe Islands
Sunday Islet (Queensland)
Taprobane Island, Sri Lanka
Thomson Islet (Queensland)
Tindhólmur, Faroe Islands
Vilkitsky Island, Arctic Ocean
Wallace Islet (Queensland)
Wachusett Reef, Ernest Legouve Reef, and Maria Theresa Reef, South Pacific Ocean
Westward Islet, in the Pitcairn Islands
Ynys Lawd, Wales
Notes
References
Coastal and oceanic landforms
Coastal geography
Islands by type