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Islands continue to be a favorite destination for holidaymakers and authors of romance novels. They provide more than just relaxation and fictional characters—they are intriguing, complex realms. Some are home to artificial structures and secretive rituals that puzzle even the most experienced explorers.
Islands can also serve as mass burial sites and dumping grounds for the ocean's refuse—often in disturbing quantities. Then, there are the hills where sheep carry cameras for Google, an island rumored to have ancient Bitcoin, and a widely visited spot on Earth that doesn't even exist.
10. Rabbit Island
Historically, Okunoshima was known as the island of rabbits’ torment. During World War II, the Japanese military used the island to test lethal gases. The laboratory rabbits were subjected to these chemicals, which later contributed to the deaths of up to 80,000 Chinese people in the 1930s and ’40s.
Fast forward to today, and the island has transformed. Rabbits now roam freely across Okunoshima, adored by visitors. Tourists indulge the furry creatures with food and countless photo opportunities. The presence of predators such as dogs, cats, and hunters is strictly prohibited on the island.
What remains a mystery is the origin of the rabbits. The original test subjects were put down by US forces when they took control of the island during the occupation.
A popular rumor suggests that in 1971, a group of schoolchildren released eight rabbits on the island. That small number was enough to start a rabbit boom. Without any natural predators, their numbers swelled. Today, hundreds of wild rabbits gather around visitors, hoping for snacks.
Despite the seemingly idyllic scene, the situation is far from perfect. The rabbits’ diet of treats has drastically shortened their life expectancy to just two years. Furthermore, their overwhelming population has disrupted the island's ecosystem, leaving them reliant on visitors for sustenance, as the natural food supply has been depleted.
9. Anglesey’s Ancient Monuments
Anglesey, a British island, is closely associated with the Druids—an ancient order of priests believed to have possessed mystical powers around 2,000 years ago. While there is no conclusive proof of the Druids’ existence, the island’s Neolithic and Bronze Age structures remain, offering a glimpse into a long-forgotten past.
One of the island’s most famous landmarks is Bryn Celli Ddu, a Neolithic monument. Excavated in 1928-1929, this 5,000-year-old tomb features an entrance tunnel that aligns perfectly with the sunrise on the summer solstice.
In 2019, archaeologists began excavating a burial mound situated 46 meters (150 ft) from Bryn Celli Ddu. Their goal was to uncover more information about the creators of these ancient structures. Interestingly, this mound was constructed 1,000 years after the tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu.
Other discoveries included a ring of pits, artifacts, and structures arranged around the passage tomb. While there was no direct personal information about the builders, it was clear that different generations had returned for thousands of years to add to the site.
8. The Cat-Fox
An extraordinary creature inhabits the forests of Corsica, a French island. Locals refer to it as the cat-fox. This feline is larger than a typical house cat, with a tail that features two to four rings. The animals also possess dog-like teeth, unusually short whiskers, and wide ears.
In 2012, wildlife rangers had their first opportunity to conduct DNA tests. They baited a stick with a scent that might appeal to the cats and left it in the wilderness. When the team retrieved the stick, they found it covered in fur, suggesting the cat-foxes had affectionately rubbed against it.
The hair confirmed the suspicions that the animals were an undocumented species, not just feral domestic cats. In fact, their DNA did not match any known species. However, it was strikingly similar to that of the African forest cat (Felis silvestris lybica).
A plausible theory proposes that farmers introduced the cats to Corsica around 6500 BC. If proven true, this would mean that the cat-fox is an ancient feline species that has managed to survive for thousands of years, only now gaining attention from the world.
7. Neolithic Man-Made Islands
The Outer Hebrides of Scotland are home to over 600 man-made islands known as crannogs. For some unknown reason, people transported stones to the middle of lakes and rivers to construct their own islands. While most of these are relics from the Iron Age, a few have been recently dated back to Neolithic Britain (4000-2500 BC).
This era remains shrouded in mystery. While people constructed fascinating monuments like Stonehenge, they left behind no written history. The discovery of Neolithic crannogs revealed that these artificial structures were 3,000 years older than previously believed. This unexpected time leap wasn’t due to the islets, but rather a cryptic ritual.
In 2012, a diver discovered Neolithic pottery near the crannogs of the Outer Hebrides. These artifacts allowed archaeologists to pinpoint five islands dating back to this ancient period.
In an unprecedented behavior for British archaeology, people went to the crannogs to dispose of their finest pottery into the waters. The crannogs likely held ritualistic importance, though the exact nature of these practices remains a mystery lost to history.
6. The World’s Most Plastic-Polluted Location
Henderson Island, located in the South Pacific, is uninhabited. There are no people or factories dumping plastic waste, yet when researchers visited the island in 2017, they were stunned by the level of pollution.
The sheer scale of the pollution was enough to distress any conservationist. The team found as many as 671 pieces of plastic per square meter. This marked the highest concentration ever documented anywhere in the world. In total, Henderson was burdened by an estimated 17 tons of plastic, and this number grows daily. On just one of the island's beaches, over 3,500 new plastic items wash ashore every single day.
The reason trash gravitates toward this remote island is clear. Henderson is situated within the South Pacific Gyre, a swirling system of currents. Debris from across the ocean eventually ends up on the island’s shores. Researchers discovered plastic waste from 24 different countries.
5. Google Sheep View
Google Street View has explored almost every corner of the Earth, but the residents of Denmark’s Faroe Islands were left waiting. For years, they watched as other locations were added to the 360-degree service, but their picturesque islands remained absent. Eventually, the islanders could no longer wait.
The Faroe Islands may be small, but they have a determined tourism department. Durita Dahl Andreassen, a staff member, had an innovative idea. She acquired 360-degree cameras and, with the approval of a local shepherd, attached the cameras to the backs of sheep.
The sheep roamed across the 18 islands, capturing the landscapes as they went. The footage from this unique project, titled “Sheep View 360,” was shared on Google’s official Street View service. The Faroe Islands are known for their sheep, which outnumber the human population, but this must have been the most unusual camera crew ever to contribute to Street View.
4. The Rai Stones
On the Pacific Island of Yap, there are fascinating artifacts known as rai stones. These are large limestone disks with a hole in the center, and some are even bigger than a person. The remarkable part is that these stones were used as currency. They were exchanged as wedding gifts, used in political dealings, paid as ransoms, and passed down as inheritances.
Because of their size and fragility, it wasn’t always possible for a new owner to transport the rai stone closer to their home. As a result, the community relied on an oral system, ensuring everyone knew who owned which stone and the details of any trades.
The rai stones date back centuries, even before European contact. Remarkably, this oral tradition is strikingly similar to the blockchain used in modern cryptocurrency. The blockchain is a public ledger of ownership, providing the same transparency that the Yapese islanders relied upon to maintain communal control over transactions and security.
Despite their differences, rai stones and cryptocurrencies share an unexpected connection. Archaeologists were surprised to find that the ancient “oral ledger” of Yap functioned much like today’s blockchain, serving the same purpose for their respective forms of currency.
3. Null Island
When users look for a coffee shop or tourist site, Google Maps employs a geographic information system (GIS) to pinpoint the coordinates on a map. GIS is what places that icon to mark the precise location of the destination.
The system contains a ghost in its mechanism. Glitches can cause GIS systems to reset to the coordinates 0°N 0°E on the map. This occurs frequently enough that geographers have dubbed this spot Null Island. Thanks to these recurring technical issues, it has become one of the most “visited” places worldwide.
When a GIS system reverts to those coordinates, it also carries along the location the user searched for. As a result, the fictional Null Island is filled with street addresses and tourist spots.
For fans of Null Island, the fact that these locations do not actually exist does not matter. They have even created a national flag and an elaborate history for the island. The coordinates 0°N 0°E do mark a real place in the South Atlantic Ocean, but instead of an island, it is the site of a buoy maintained by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that collects climate data.
2. Canada’s Record-Holding Islands
Here’s a curious geography fact: there are things called an island-in-a-lake-on-an-island-in-a-lake-on-an-island. For many years, the largest of these was an island in a lake on Volcano Island, which itself sat within Lake Taal on the island of Luzon, Philippines.
In 2012, enthusiasts of this bizarre geographical phenomenon turned to Google Earth to see if they could discover an even larger set of stacked islands and lakes. After an extensive search, they stumbled upon a new record holder in Canada. At its center was a tiny, uninhabited piece of land so small and unnamed that it’s likely no human had ever set foot there.
The tiny island is nestled inside a lake that is surrounded by another island. This second island rests within a long lake about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the shores of Victoria Island. It seems fitting that the title of the world’s largest island-in-a-lake-on-an-island-in-a-lake-on-an-island belongs to Canada, a country already known for holding similar island-related records, including the world’s largest island-in-a-lake and lake-on-an-island.
1. Hart Island’s Body Problem
New York City's 'Island of the Dead' earned its grim nickname honestly. Its official name is Hart Island. Since 1868, it has been used as the city’s cemetery for those who could not afford a proper burial.
When no one claims a body or when the family cannot pay for a funeral, the deceased is brought to this 101-acre island for burial. Around one million bodies have been laid to rest in mass graves, with pine coffins stacked on top of each other. The number continues to rise by approximately 1,000 new bodies each year.
In 2018, the situation took a turn for the worse. Erosion began exposing so many skeletons along the coastline that police dubbed it “bones beach.” Forensic anthropologists have worked to collect or mark most of the exposed remains, but the issue is far from being resolved.
Extreme weather events, including floodwaters and storms, continue to ravage the island’s older burial sites. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took the situation seriously enough to allocate $13 million for a project to reinforce and stabilize the island’s eroding shorelines.
