Islet

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For human anatomy, see Islets of Langerhans

Mōkōlea Rock in Kailua Bay, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, 2.2 km off North Beach, Marine Corps Base Hawaii

An islet is a small island.

Definition of Types

Rock

A "rock", sometimes a synonym for a type of "islet", is a landform composed of rock, lying offshore, having no or minimal vegetation, and uninhabited (see Mōkōlua Rock at right).

Sandbar

An exposed sandbar is another type of islet. A more technical application is to small land features, isolated by water, lying off the shore of a larger island. And in related fashion, any emergent land on an atoll (a type of island) is also called an islet.

Size

As with many of these terms, the actual size limits of islets are subjective, and vary.

Synonymous Terms

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• Islets are often called cays or keys in the Caribbean and West Atlantic. Rum Cay in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys off Florida are examples of islets.

• In Scotland and Ireland, they are often called inches, from the Gaelic innis, which originally meant island, but has been supplanted to refer to smaller islands. In Ireland they are often termed skerries.

• In the Channel Islands, they are often identified by the suffix -hou from the Norse -holmr.

• Holm or Holmen is a common suffix too in Nordic and northern European lands ("holme" means "islet" in Swedish and Norwegian).