What is the biggest island in Australia?
Tasmania is the biggest island in Australia. Next on the list of Australia’s largest islands are Melville Island, Kangaroo Island, Groote Eylandt and Bathurst Island.
If Australia was an island rather than a continent, it would be the biggest island in the world. But Australia, the country, has several offshore islands. Some of these are pretty sizable, too.
Geoscience Australia reckons that Australia has 8,222 islands. Of these, easily the biggest island in Australia is Tasmania, named after explorer Abel Tasman. The area of Tasmania (the state) 68,401 square kilometres, of which Tasmania (the main island) has an area of 64,519 square kilometres.
Second biggest island in Australia
The second biggest island in Australia is Melville Island, part of the Northern Territory’s Top End. Melville Island is one of the Tiwi Islands to the north of Darwin, and has an area of 5,786 square kilometres.
Two more Northern Territory islands make it into the top five Australian islands by size, as well. Groote Eylandt is fourth with an area of 2,285 square kilometres. Bathurst Island is fifth, with an area of 1,693 square kilometres.
Some of Australia’s most famous islands don’t trouble the list of Australia’s biggest. Rottnest Island near Perth and Phillip Island near Melbourne are relatively small, for example.
Australia’s largest islands: Third biggest island in Australia
But Kangaroo Island, reached by Sealink ferry from Cape Jervis on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, is very much a tourist hotspot. Kangaroo Island has an area of 4,416 square kilometres, making it Australia’s third largest island.
The rest of the top ten Australian islands by size is made up of Fraser Island in Queensland, Flinders and King Islands in Tasmania and Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland.
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