An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain or cluster of islands.

The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι-– arkhi-(" chief ") and πέλαγος – pélagos (" sea ") through the Italian arcipelago.

The archipelago with the most islands is the Archipelago Sea in Finland.

In October 1704, after the ships had parted ways because of a dispute between Stradling and Dampier, the Cinque Ports was brought by Stradling to an island that is today known as Robinson Crusoe Island in the uninhabited archipelago of Juan Fernández off the coast of Chile for a mid-expedition restocking of supplies and fresh water.

The archipelago of the Azores is located in the middle of the northern hemisphere of the Atlantic Ocean and extends along a west-northwest to east-southeast orientation ( between 36. 5 °– 40 ° North latitudes and 24. 5 °– 31. 5 ° West longitudes ) in an area approximately 600 km wide.

Much of modern Finland is former seabed or archipelago: illustrated are sea levels immediately after the last ice age.

The archipelago is subject to cyclical droughts ; a devastating drought began in 1968 and was broken only briefly in 1975, 1978, 1984, and 1986.

Cape Verde is the driest archipelago of the ecoregion of Macaronesia.

It is a three-island archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, consisting of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman.

Kontinenten – the Continent – is a vernacular Swedish expression excluding Sweden, Norway and Finland, but including Denmark ( even the Danish archipelago ) and the rest of continental Europe.

The most recently formed of the four islands in the archipelago, it is also of volcanic origin.

There is also a mention of Kidd attacking one of the Japanese islands of the Tokara archipelago, south of Kagoshima.

Gallurese is spoken in the extreme north of Sardinia, including the region of Gallura and the archipelago of La Maddalena.

The people of Ono-i-Lau in the Lau Islands archipelago claim that Minerva Reef is part of their traditional fishing ground.

Located just 100 kilometres off the coast of north Africa, it is the second biggest of the islands, after Tenerife, and has the longest beaches in the archipelago.

A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago.

Indonesia's transport system has been shaped over time by the economic resource base of an archipelago with thousands of islands, and the distribution of its more than 200 million people highly concentrated on a single island which is Java.

Japan is an island nation in East Asia comprising a stratovolcanic archipelago extending along the Pacific coast of Asia.

The profusion is due to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation.

The volcanic origin and remote location of the islands meant that the islands ' flora and fauna had to reach the archipelago from far across the sea ; as a result, the island is home to relatively few plant species and very few animal species.

It is separated from the Barents Sea to the west by the Kara Strait and Novaya Zemlya, and the Laptev Sea to the east by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago.

The main island, Grande Terre, is in area and is surrounded by a further 300 smaller islands and islets, forming an archipelago of.

The Kerguelen Islands, along with the islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul, and the Crozet archipelago were officially annexed by France in 1893, and were included as possessions in the French constitution in 1924 ( in addition to that portion of Antarctica claimed by France and known as Adélie Land ; as with all Antarctic territorial claims, France's possession on the continent is held in abeyance until a new international treaty is ratified that defines each claimant's rights and obligations ).

Prior to major influence from outside, there were approximately 25, 000 Aleuts on the archipelago.

With a total area of approximately, the UK occupies the major part of the British Isles archipelago and includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern one-sixth of the island of Ireland and many smaller surrounding islands.

Malta is an archipelago of coralline limestone, located in the Mediterranean Sea, approximately 93 kilometres south of Sicily, Italy, and nearly 300 km north ( Libya ) and northeast ( Tunisia ) of Africa.

Matinicus Island, the largest in the eight-island archipelago, is shaped like an oval approximately long by wide, containing about.

Ertholmene, generally called Christiansø, is a small archipelago situated approximately 18 km northeast of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.

The archipelago extends from the northwestern coast of Sigguup Nunaa peninsula in the south at approximately to the southern end of Melville Bay () in the north at approximately.

Andros, or Andro () is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, approximately south east of Euboea, and about north of Tinos.

The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (,, or ; ; Japanese: ), in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean.

There are thousands of islets on Earth: approximately 24, 000 islands and islets in the Stockholm archipelago alone.

Gran Canaria (; originally meaning ' Great of Dogs ') is the second most populous island of the Canary Islands, with a population of 838, 397 which constitutes approximately 40 % of the population of the archipelago.

Grande Île, the main island, is long and wide at its widest ( approximately ), though this is just the tip of a substantial and complex archipelago which is exposed at low tide.

It has an area of 143 km², a population of approximately 3907 inhabitants, and, together with the island of Corvo Island of the western archipelago, lies within the North American Plate.

* Karimun Jawa, an archipelago of 69 islands in the Java Sea, Indonesia, approximately 80 kilometres northwest of Jepara

It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56, 000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396. 75 km².

By 1490, this Flemish community numbered approximately 1500 people, and were joined by several families from the Alentejo, Moinho and other islands in the archipelago.

The territory's capital and administrative centre ( also called Port Blair ), is located approximately to the southwest of the archipelago, accessible via a 3-5 hour ferry trip.

It is one of the Izu Seven Islands group of the seven northern islands of the Izu archipelago, and is located approximately south of Tōkyō and south of Shimoda Shizuoka Prefecture.

It is approximately from the Brazilian northeastern coastal town of Touros, northeast of the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, from the city of Natal, and from the western African coast.

The nearest point in the Brazilian coast, is Cabo do Calcanhar, Rio Grande do Norte, approximately from the archipelago.

Ko Chang is part of an archipelago of 51 islands, and is approximately 30 km long by 14 km, wide with a total area of 217 km².

The Kangean Islands ( Indonesian: Kepulauan Kangean ) form an archipelago part of Indonesia, are located in the Java Sea approximately north of Bali and 120 km east of Madura Island.