Difference Between an Island and a Peninsula
There are very distinct differences between an Island and a Peninsula. For one, an island is a parcel of land that’s covered by water on all its sides whereas a peninsula is only surrounded by water on three sides.
There are four kinds of islands known in this world. They are coral, oceanic, tectonic and continental. To define each of them, Coral islands are those islands that came about through the underwater activities of very small organisms called coral polyps while tectonic islands such as the Barbados over at West Indies are those formed by the earth’s crust’s movements. Oceanic islands, on the other hand, are islands that surfaced from the sea bottom like St.Helena whereas continental islands are those that have risen from the continental shelves like that of the British Isles.
Islands are characterized by large pieces of land, in fact, the biggest of these is comparably bigger than that of Europe’s entire land area. On the other hand, there are several thousands of smaller islands found in this world, scattered everywhere around the globe. Apart from this, islands ar more breathtaking in beauty with waterfront houses surrounding its shores.
The origin of the word peninsula is Latin which is paeninsula. It is different from the island because it is not on its own or not isolated. Examples of a peninsula are Greenland and India where the latter is surrounded by three great seas: the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.
To summarize:
- An island is a piece of land surrounded on all four sides by a great body of water
- A peninsula, on the other hand, is surrounded by water on only three sides
- An island is isolated whereas a peninsula is not
- There are four types of island: tectonic, oceanic, coral and continental.