'''Island nations and territories''' tend to defy a tidy geographical hierarchy. On a planet covered 70% by interconnected oceans, in a literal sense ''every'' place is an island. But the really big ones we think of as continents, leaving the smaller islands – scattered far and wide – as the "leftovers" of geography. Which often makes them some of the most unique and interesting destinations.
These region articles attempt to group them logically for the traveler (sometimes bending official geography to do so):
Islands of the Arctic Ocean - near-polar territories north of 60°
Islands of the Atlantic Ocean - islands in the east and south Atlantic, mostly near Africa
*Caribbean - the West Indies and more, near the Americas
Islands of the Indian Ocean - island territories and nations, big and small
Islands of the Pacific Ocean - Oceania
Islands of the Southern Ocean - near-polar territories south of 45°