Top 10 countries with the most islands in the world

When we think of island-rich countries, images of palm-lined shores and turquoise seas usually spring to mind. But what if the real island superpowers aren’t tropical at all? In reality, the nations with the most islands are often shaped by ice and erosion, not sunshine. Fjord-slashed coastlines, glacial lakes and fractured terrain have produced tens of thousands of islands—many tiny, uninhabited and unknown even to those who live nearby.

So how do you even count an island? That’s where it gets tricky. There’s no global rulebook. Some countries count any landmass that stays above water at high tide, no matter how small, while others set minimum size or coastline limits. Modern satellite mapping has further reshaped the numbers, uncovering previously unrecorded islets and pushing official counts higher. The rankings below draw on WorldAtlas data, cross-checked with World Population Review, and include only natural islands—leaving out artificial structures, rocks and sandbanks that vanish with the tide.

1. Norway – 320,249 islands
Norway leads the global island count thanks to its deeply indented, glacier-carved coastline. Thousands of islands dot its shores, stretching from the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in the north to the skerries near the Swedish border in the south. These range from barren, wave-battered rocks to long-settled fishing communities that still shape coastal life.

2. Sweden – 267,570 islands
Sweden follows closely, with an island count driven as much by freshwater as by sea. Alongside its Baltic Sea archipelagos are tens of thousands of islands scattered across inland lakes. Fewer than 1,000 are inhabited, but together they form one of the most complex island networks on the planet, much of it forested and largely untouched.

3. Finland – 178,947 islands
Finland’s landscape is defined by water. Known as the “Land of a Thousand Lakes,” the country actually has far more—and many of those lakes contain multiple islands. Combined with Finland’s Baltic coastline, this results in one of the world’s most fragmented geographies.

4. Japan – 120,729 islands
Japan’s island tally jumped dramatically after a major remapping exercise in 2023 using advanced satellite technology. The update identified thousands of previously unrecorded islands that met stricter criteria, including minimum coastline length. While most are uninhabited, the revised figure highlights how scattered Japan’s landmass truly is.

5. Canada – 52,455 islands
Canada’s islands span three oceans—the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic. Large landmasses such as Baffin Island sit alongside countless smaller, unnamed islands, many of them remote and uninhabited. In the far north, ice and extreme weather still limit detailed mapping, suggesting the total may yet evolve.

6. Chile – 43,471 islands
Chile’s long Pacific coastline conceals a vast maze of islands, particularly in the fjord-filled south of Patagonia. Channels, rain-soaked archipelagos and rugged terrain define this region, where many islands are accessible only by boat and remain largely untouched by modern development.

7. United States – 18,617 islands
The United States’ island count stretches across continents and oceans. It includes Alaska’s extensive island chains, the Florida Keys, coastal islands along both seaboards, and distant territories such as Guam and American Samoa. Alaska alone accounts for a large share of the total.

8. Indonesia – 17,508 islands
Despite being widely known as the world’s largest archipelagic nation, Indonesia ranks lower on this list due to stricter counting rules. Spread over more than 5,000 kilometres, its islands range from densely populated hubs to remote volcanic outcrops and forested wilderness.

9. Australia – 8,222 islands
Often thought of as a single continental landmass, Australia also boasts thousands of offshore islands. From Tasmania in the south to the Torres Strait islands in the north, these landmasses reflect the country’s long coastline and diverse marine geography.

10. Philippines – 7,641 islands
Rounding out the top ten, the Philippines is one of the most densely populated island nations in the world. More than 2,000 of its islands are inhabited, forming the backbone of daily life, trade and transport across Southeast Asia.