Top 10 Largest Islands in the United States

#1: Hawaiʻi (Big Island) (4,028 sq mi; highest point Mauna Kea 13,803 ft; coastline ~266 mi; population ~200,000)

Born from five overlapping shield volcanoes and still growing at Kīlauea’s fiery fringe, the Big Island is less an island than a living geology lesson where you can crunch across fresh black lava in the morning, snorkel with manta rays by night, and drive from tropical orchids to alpine cinder deserts in an afternoon. Mauna Kea—measured from its submarine base—towers taller than Everest, and stargazers huddle in parkas near its summit telescopes while beachgoers in Kona sip shaved ice below. The island’s sheer size (twice the rest of the Hawaiian chain combined) means climate zones stack like a deck of cards: windward Hilo soaks under 130+ inches of annual rain, while leeward Kohala sips dust-dry breezes scented with kiawe smoke. Ancient Hawaiians read these gradients intimately, terracing sweet potato and taro fields up volcanic flanks, and carving petroglyphs into pāhoehoe flows that still hold their footfalls. Hidden gem? The Kaʻū Desert, not sand at all but a desolate plain of ash where acidic rain once burned leaves from plants—hike there and you’ll find footprints fossilized in ash from an 18th-century eruption, eerie reminders of people fleeing lava by torchlight. Interesting stat: about 90% of the island’s residents live on only a fraction of its land; vast ranches like Parker Ranch (one of America’s largest) spread over the high, grassy saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, introducing paniolo (Hawaiian cowboys) culture that predates the American West’s mythos. Stories ripple through coffee farms in Kaʻū, where growers survived sugar’s collapse by betting on beans and now win global cupping contests; through Puna subdivisions where lava occasionally re-drafts property lines, residents tell you about that night the sky glowed and the earth sounded like surf. Kīlauea’s 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption swallowed highways and created a new black sand beach—Hawaiʻi Island reminds you nothing is permanent, but the land you gain might be as life-giving as the land you lose. From the summit snow (yes, real snow) to submarine coral gardens, from ʻōhiʻa lehua blossoms that legend says sprang from a love story to the cultural renaissance that brought the Hōkūleʻa voyaging canoe home guided by stars, the Big Island is America’s molten heart beating in the mid-Pacific, an island where you’re always aware that the ground beneath you is moving, growing, and telling stories in steam.

#2: Kodiak Island, Alaska (3,595 sq mi; highest point Koniag Peak 4,469 ft; coastline ~1,340 mi; population ~13,000)

Kodiak is Alaska distilled—fog-draped spruce forests, fjords gouged by Pleistocene ice, salmon runs so thick locals say you could walk across their backs, and bruins the size of small cars ambling through blueberry thickets. The Kodiak brown bear, a subspecies rivaling polar bears in heft, is the island’s totem; pilots swapping tales over diner coffee measure summer by how many 1,000-pounders they spotted fishing estuaries. Yet Kodiak is also Russian onion domes and WWII bunkers: the Russians established a fur-trading hub here in the 1790s, leaving behind the Holy Resurrection Church, whose blue onion domes still anchor Kodiak City’s skyline. In 1942, fearing Japanese invasion, the U.S. military turned Kodiak into a fortress; Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park now hides gun emplacements among Sitka spruce, and hikers peer from clifftop lookouts once manned by uniformed spotters. Hidden gem: the Buskin River at pink salmon peak—locals line banks with dip nets, and a visiting kid once screamed with delight when a salmon launched from the current and slapped him in the chest like a rubber torpedo. Stats you didn’t know: Kodiak’s coastline is longer than the entire California coast thanks to fractal fjords and bays; its tidal swings can top 12 feet, revealing tidepools where sunflower stars the size of hubcaps creep among anemones. The 1964 Good Friday earthquake (magnitude 9.2) sent tsunamis hammering the island—Kodiak City’s waterfront was rebuilt on higher ground, and elders still point out the “old high-water marks.” The Alaska Marine Highway ties Kodiak to the mainland, but on stormy days, ferries bob like corks and bush pilots thread cloud seams to land on runways slick with mist. Culture here is a blend: Alutiiq heritage resurging with language classes and mask carving, commercial fishermen swapping tips on herring seines, Coasties (Coast Guard) on shore leave cramming into Henry’s Great Alaskan Restaurant. Kodiak feels wild, but it’s a working island—canneries hum with the scent of brine and fish oil, and the rocket-launch complex on Narrow Cape (Pacific Spaceport Complex) occasionally sends small payloads arcing over waves, a sci-fi twist atop ancient rock. Moose, red foxes, and mountain goats share slopes with military radar domes, and in fall, berry pickers watch for bears with the same vigilance they watch the weather. It’s America out on the edge: pragmatic, rugged, ocean-anchored, with stories etched into driftwood and the names of bays.

#3: Puerto Rico (3,435 sq mi; highest point Cerro de Punta 4,390 ft; coastline ~311 mi; population ~3.2 million)

A Caribbean jewel with a mountainous spine, Puerto Rico is often mislabeled as “just a tropical island,” but that misses its layered identity: Taíno roots, Spanish colonial cathedrals, African rhythms, American citizenship, and a diaspora that stretches from Orlando to the Bronx. Drive from the cobbled streets of Old San Juan—where El Morro’s cannon embrasures once commanded the trade winds’ gateway—to the karst country of the northwest, where mogotes (limestone haystacks) rise from green plains riddled with caves like Cueva Ventana, a window that frames a river valley in cinematic fashion. Interesting stat: El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest system, and it soaks up 100+ inches of rain annually, feeding cascades where families swim beneath tree frogs (coquí) that chirp their names at dusk. Anecdote: ask about the night Hurricane María struck in 2017, and you’ll get stories of community brigades clearing roads with machetes, neighbors sharing generators and sancocho stew, and a months-long darkness that reshaped politics and resilience. Hidden gems include the bioluminescent bays—Mosquito Bay in Vieques glows with dinoflagellates that explode in blue streaks when you swirl your hand, a galaxy cupped in saltwater. Puerto Rico’s metric of area belies microclimates: coffee farms in the Cordillera Central once powered the island’s economy; today, third-wave cafés in Santurce serve single-origin beans grown a few hours’ drive away. There’s surfing at Rincón where winter swells peel like silver scrolls, and in Ponce, a firehouse-turned-museum painted in stripes of red and black nods to a fire brigade legend. Stat you might not know: Puerto Rico has one of the world’s most complete sequences of Cretaceous oceanic rocks; geologists read its outcrops like library stacks of ancient seafloor. And there’s a collider of culinary traditions—lechón (whole roast pig) along La Ruta del Lechón in Guavate, plantains smashed into mofongo bowls stuffed with garlic shrimp, street-corner piraguas shaved from ice blocks with syrups so bright they’d make neon jealous. Historically, the Jones Act still shapes shipping costs; politically, status debates (statehood, independence, enhanced commonwealth) arc through headlines and living rooms. Yet on Three Kings Day in January, children tuck shoeboxes of grass under beds for camels, a tradition older than Santa here. Puerto Rico is rhythm and resilience: bomba drums under a sunset, dominoes slapped on a table, a coquí chorus after rain, and a flag waved fiercely by people whose identity is as layered and proud as the island’s geology.

#4: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska (2,577 sq mi; highest point Mount Austin 5,098 ft; coastline ~2,600 mi counting inlets; population ~6,000)

Imagine an island laced with 2,600 miles of convoluted shoreline—coves like fjord seedlings, spruce forests dripping with moss, karst caves where bones of prehistoric bears lie in silence. That’s Prince of Wales, the second-largest island in the U.S. outside of Hawaii and Kodiak, and a place where roads genuinely disappear into salmonberry thickets. Tongass National Forest cloaks most of it, the largest temperate rainforest on Earth, where Sitka spruce stand like columns in a cathedral kept perpetually damp by Pacific breath. Hidden gem: El Capitan Cave, the state’s longest mapped cave, where guided tours descend into chambers shimmering with calcite; paleontologists pulled out bones dating back tens of thousands of years, rewriting Southeast Alaska’s ice-age story. Stat to savor: more black bears than people in many districts, and deer that swim between islands as casually as commuters switching buses. In the 19th century, Tlingit and Haida villages carved totem poles that still guard shorelines; at Kasaan, you can walk into a 19th-century Haida longhouse reconstructed with painstaking care, cedar planks still smelling faintly of resin. Timber built the modern towns—the island was ground zero for the postwar logging boom, its logging roads now doubling as access for hunters and berry pickers. There’s a quirky network of ferries and floatplanes; Craig and Klawock host fishing derbies where halibut the size of doors get hoisted by cranes, and in winter, locals plug in their truck engine block heaters like you’d charge a phone. WWII left its mark—Alaska Native scouts in the Alaska Territorial Guard patrolled the coasts; their stories echo at community centers beside bingo nights. Anecdote: a guide once told of a summer when humpbacks were so thick in a narrow channel that boats idled, engines off, listening to whales bubble-net feed, the sound like a giant carbonated drink fizzing. Karst topography undermines roads with sinkholes; engineers learned the hard way that paving over Swiss cheese requires creativity. Speleologists still map caves, crawling through passages no wider than backpacks, mud-caked but grinning with headlamp smiles. Prince of Wales feels like a labyrinth—geologically, hydrologically, culturally—yet its communities are tight-knit, stitched by VHF radios, potlucks heavy with smoked coho, and the knowledge that if your skiff stalls, someone will come. It’s a place where the ocean isn’t a view but a highway, the forest isn’t scenery but pantry and pharmacy, and every bay hides a story of log booms, clan migrations, or someone’s best silver salmon day ever.

#5: Chichagof Island, Alaska (2,048 sq mi; highest point Whitestripe Mountain 4,300+ ft; coastline ~742 mi; population ~1,300)

Chichagof (locals say “Chick-a-goff”) is bear country with a capital B—biologists estimate one of the highest densities of brown bears on Earth, outnumbering humans handily. Fly into Hoonah and you’ll see Tlingit culture proudly displayed—Totem poles recounting stories of clan migrations, and the Icy Strait Point development turning a former cannery into a cruise ship stop managed by the community itself, funneling tourism dollars to local hands. Yet take a skiff ten minutes away and you’re in a cathedral of silence, where salmon flicker like coins in clear creeks and eagles regard you with the same cool neutrality they give storms. Stat nudge: this island plus its neighbor Baranof form the “ABC Islands” (Admiralty, Baranof, Chichagof) that collectively shelter vast swaths of old-growth Tongass, trees 500 years old with trunks you can’t hug. Hidden gem: Tenakee Springs, a tiny hamlet where a natural hot spring bathhouse operates on a schedule—men’s hours, women’s hours—and the main “road” is an ATV track lined with mailboxes and berry bushes. Anecdote: residents recall winters when the mail plane couldn’t land for days and the town held “potluck potlatches” to swap essentials; someone always had extra flour, someone else coffee, and freezers ran deep with halibut. Logging roads spider across parts of Chichagof, and debates over Roadless Rule protections get as heated as sauna stones. Watch for sea otters rafted up like fuzzy buoys; they were once hunted nearly to extinction for their pelts, now they chomp through sea urchins, altering kelp forests in ecological cascades grad students love to model. In Pelican (population ~60), houses perch on pilings above tideflats, and folks zip around on boardwalks—the entire town a stilted fish camp turned permanent. Chichagof’s geology is a mash of uplifted marine sediments folded like origami by tectonics; earthquakes remind residents that the Fairweather Fault is no fairy tale. Meanwhile, humpbacks breach in Icy Strait, Tlingit youths carve cedar to learn old stories anew, and mushroom hunters quietly guard patches of golden chanterelles like treasure maps. Chichagof is equal parts raw and resilient, proving you can be remote without being disconnected—community radio, satellite internet, and gossip travel faster than storms, but storms still rule schedules. Here, the greatest luxury is a calm day on glassy water, a fish on the line, and the guarantee that the forest and sea will keep feeding those who treat them with respect.

#6: St. Lawrence Island, Alaska (1,983 sq mi; highest point Sevuokuk Mountain 2,290 ft; coastline ~400 mi; population ~1,400)

Sitting in the northern Bering Sea, closer to Siberia than mainland Alaska, St. Lawrence Island feels like a bridge between continents—indeed, archaeological sites reveal continuous Yupik habitation for over 2,000 years, a cultural thread that predates modern borders. Gambell and Savoonga are the island’s two villages, subsisting largely on walrus, bowhead whale, and seal hunts timed with sea ice and migration patterns that are shifting in a warming Arctic. Stat: the island is actually the remnant of an ancient volcanic plateau, capped by tundra and low mountains where muskox once roamed until overhunting wiped them out; recent reintroductions on the mainland hint at possibilities. A Cold War anecdote: in 1955, a U.S. Navy aircraft mistakenly landed in Siberia after navigation errors over sea ice; but locals here have long watched both Russian and American military hardware sweep the horizon. Hidden gem: cliffs near Gambell where millions of seabirds—auklets, murres, puffins—wheel and nest; birders from around the world line scopes on a gravel spit, hoping for a wayward Siberian vagrant to pad life lists. Whale bones arch over some homes like bleached ribs, a stark, beautiful practicality—driftwood is scarce this far north, so nothing large goes to waste. The island experienced a tragic PCB contamination decades ago from abandoned military sites; cleanup and health studies are ongoing, and residents talk about “toxic legacies” with the same frankness they discuss ice conditions. Winter darkness here is relieved by the green curtains of aurora, and teenagers take snowmachines across frozen flats the way suburban kids take skateboards. Interesting stat: storms can push waves across low-lying sections, temporarily salting freshwater ponds and altering fish populations—a vivid lesson in how dynamic barrier-like islands can be. In summer, tundra explodes with pink bistort and yellow poppies, and families gather greens called “sourdock” to balance protein-heavy diets. Elders tell children stories of kayak hunters who once harpooned walrus from hides stretched over driftwood frames, teaching technique and respect in the same breath. St. Lawrence Island reminds the rest of America that subsistence isn’t nostalgia—it’s present tense, calibrated to a landscape where groceries arrive sporadically by barge or plane, but the ocean’s pantry is at the front door and the wind dictates the menu.

#7: Admiralty Island, Alaska (1,646 sq mi; highest point Eagle Peak 4,620 ft; coastline ~725 mi; population ~650)

Nicknamed “Fortress of the Bears,” Admiralty boasts an estimated one brown bear per square mile, and kayaking its coast feels like moving through someone else’s living room—you announce yourself around blind bends. Angoon, the main Tlingit community, bears scars from an 1882 U.S. Navy bombardment that destroyed the village in retaliation after a conflict over a whale boat’s explosion; descendants pushed for and received reparations a century later, a reminder that paradise is often complicated by history. Stat whisper: 1 million acres of this island are protected as Admiralty Island National Monument (Kootznoowoo—“Fortress of the Bears” in Tlingit), a rare intact piece of temperate rainforest where giant cedars grab mist like nets. Hidden gem: Pack Creek Bear Viewing Area, where, under strict permits, visitors watch bruins scoop salmon from riffles so close you can hear the splash but not cross the invisible etiquette line enforced by rangers and common sense. Logging here was limited compared to neighboring islands, but debates persist over road building and hydropower projects that might slice into wilderness. Anecdote: a Forest Service ranger once recounted chasing a black cloud of mosquitoes into his cabin, only to discover he’d invited in not just bugs but a young marten who sat on the counter like an offended cat. The island’s karst caves stash secrets; one yielded a 12,000-year-old brown bear skull, proving these great bears weathered the last ice age in local refugia. Paddlers slip into Seymour Canal’s glassy reaches at dawn, hoping for the spiral exhale of humpbacks; by noon, rain could be drumming so hard it feels like paddling under a waterfall. And then there’s the small magic: banana slugs the color of bruised avocados, salmonberries ripening from coral to crimson, ravens doing aerial acrobatics and sounding like they’re laughing at your rain gear. Culture and subsistence blend—smokehouses puff alder-scented fish, and eulachon (hooligan) runs bring shimmering silver biomass that gets rendered into oil, a traditional staple. Admiralty is proof that “largest” doesn’t just mean big; it can mean dense—in life, in story, in rain molecules per cubic inch—and that sharing space with apex predators makes humans sharper, humbler, more attuned to the snap of a twig.

#8: Nunivak Island, Alaska (1,600 sq mi; highest point 1,765 ft; coastline ~480 mi; population ~200)

Floating in the Bering Sea off the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, Nunivak is a windswept tundra dome where the Cup’ik people maintain traditions that weathered missionary pressures and pandemics. Mekoryuk, the island’s lone village, sits on its north coast, colorful houses clustered like Lego blocks against the gray-green canvas. Stat you might not know: muskox herds were transplanted here in the 1930s from Greenland to rescue the species from Alaskan extinction; today, hundreds roam the island’s interior, their shaggy qiviut (ultra-soft underwool) prized by knitters who spin some of the world’s warmest, lightest yarn. Hidden gem: inland lakes mirror sky so perfectly that when fog rolls in, boats seem to skim between two heavens; residents tell of storms where whiteout erased horizon lines and even seasoned hunters waited it out rather than trust GPS alone. The island is volcanic basalt, its gentle slopes dotted with artifact sites—thule house depressions, old cache pits—evidence of centuries of seasonal rounds following geese, fish, and caribou (introduced here too). Anecdote: elders recall dog teams howling when winter storms approached, and kids racing them on homemade sleds across blue glare ice; snowmachines do the work now, but dog stories persist like favorite songs. During WWII, the U.S. military eyed Nunivak for an airstrip but chose other sites; still, the island’s strategic spot in the Bering Sea means radar and satellite eyes sweep overhead. Subsistence here isn’t a pastime, it’s Wednesday: ice fishing for tomcod, gathering wild greens like beach asparagus, fermenting “stink heads” from salmon—a polarizing delicacy. Spring brings crane migrations—tens of thousands bugling overhead—and autumn paints dwarf willows in copper. Climate change? Thawing permafrost slumps into lagoons, and sea ice retreats earlier, making walrus hunts trickier; the community adapts with a mix of tradition and technology (VHF, Facebook groups for coordination). The Cup’ik language, distinct from Yup’ik, finds revival in classrooms where children giggle through vocabulary drills that name snow types modern English doesn’t bother to categorize. Nunivak proves small populations can steward vast spaces, that an island’s richness isn’t just in forests or mountains but in the tight weave of culture, muskox tracks, and the taste of seal oil on fresh fish.

#9: Baranof Island, Alaska (1,607 sq mi; highest point Peak 5390 ~5,390 ft; coastline ~620 mi; population ~8,500)

Baranof is a study in contrasts: towering peaks claw at storms while Sitka, the island’s main city, hosts cruise ship crowds photographing onion-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral—a relic of Russian America—before ducking into craft breweries pouring spruce tip ales. Stat: Sitka was once the capital of Russian America; in 1867, the transfer ceremony for the Alaska Purchase took place here—some locals say the U.S. flag snagged halfway up the pole, a bad omen turned myth. Today, Sitka’s sound is a labyrinth of islands where sea otters raft in kelp beds and anglers chase king salmon under skies that oscillate between sublime and sideways rain in minutes. Hidden gem: Baranof Warm Springs, a remote hamlet with a boardwalk and a communal bathhouse perched over a waterfall that booms like applause; backpackers soak in natural pools above, muscles thanking geology. The island’s interior is serrated—glaciers cling to cirques, mountain goats tiptoe along ridges, and the Baranof River thunders through a gorge you can feel in your sternum. Logging shaped parts of the island mid-20th century, but second-growth now softens clearcuts into a checkerboard tapestry, and debate over old-growth protections in the Tongass is as evergreen as the trees themselves. Anecdote: a Sitka fisherman tells of a humpback bubble-net feeding right beside his boat, mouths agape like open barns, fish raining in brine-scented chaos; he swears he made eye contact with a whale and felt judged—“for what, I don’t know, but judged.” The island’s brown bears keep hikers honest—bear bells are theater; real safety is awareness, voice, and bear spray handy. Meanwhile, Tlingit clans assert sovereignty in art and governance; clan houses painted in bold formline designs host potlatches where stories are performed as much as told. In winter, Sitka’s Symphony of Seafood showcases kelp pickles and rockfish sausages, evidence that innovation swims with tradition here. Baranof’s geology is metamorphic rock twisted by tectonics that still rumble; the 2013 Sitka landslide reminded residents that mountains are always on the move. And when the rare bluebird day hits? Every boat leaves the harbor, every hiker hits the trail, and the whole island exhales into the sun, savoring Vitamin D like a delicacy.

#10: Unimak Island, Alaska (1,590 sq mi; highest point Shishaldin Volcano 9,373 ft; coastline ~500 mi; population ~35)

Easternmost of the Aleutian chain, Unimak is where the Alaska Peninsula flings its last landward punch before dissolving into a 1,200-mile volcanic necklace. Shishaldin, a near-perfect stratovolcano cone, smokes like a cigar on calm days and occasionally shoots ash plumes high enough to reroute trans-Pacific flights. Stat: Shishaldin is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutians, and pilots use it as a visual waypoint—when it’s not cloaked in Aleutian mists. The island’s residents cluster mostly in False Pass (pop. ~35), a fishing community sitting on—wait for it—a false pass: the narrow Isanotski Strait looks navigable but hides shoals that snagged unwary mariners long before GPS. Hidden gem: Izembek National Wildlife Refuge (partly on the adjacent mainland but ecologically tied), where eelgrass meadows in lagoons host nearly the entire world population of Pacific black brant during migration, and a quarter-million shorebirds refuel in a frenzy each fall. WWII turned Unimak into a sensor-laden sentinel; the ill-fated USS Worden ran aground here in 1943, and some remote military sites still crumble in the salt air. Anecdote: a longliner captain remembers anchoring in a snug cove when a storm pinned them for three days; boredom turned into a halibut filleting contest judged by precision and speed, the kind of micro-drama that gives shape to weather-bound time. Wolves and foxes trot beaches streaked with kelp, caribou (introduced decades ago) ghost the tundra, and brown bears patrol salmon-choked streams that steam in autumn fog. The wind here is a character—locals joke it can strip paint and sanity in a season—so every building is overbuilt, every door latched. Unimak once hosted a herd of reindeer that swam in during winter ice years from neighboring islands; overgrazing and wolves shifted that balance, a lesson in introduced species and predator-prey seesaws. The island’s Aleut (Unangan) heritage is deep—ancient middens pile shells and bones, telling archaeologists about diets over millennia; today, cultural revitalization efforts connect youth to ancestral language and craft despite vast distances. Geologically, Unimak sits atop the subducting Pacific Plate; tremors are part of life, and residents can recite eruption dates the way others recite sports stats. Yet on a calm summer evening, with the volcano’s shadow stretching across tundra and the Bering Sea glinting like hammered metal, Unimak feels not hostile but humbling—a reminder that edge places define the country as surely as its heartlands.

Closing the Circle of Shores

From Polynesian lava shields to Arctic muskox pastures, from Caribbean rainforests to Tongass cathedrals of spruce, America’s largest islands prove the nation’s diversity isn’t just cultural—it’s geological, ecological, and oceanic. Each island teaches a different tempo: the slow creep of glaciers, the quick flash of a coquí, the patient wait for a weather window, the sudden roar of a volcano. They’re laboratories, homelands, larders, and launchpads. And they share something quietly profound: communities that figured out how to live with—not against—their water-wrapped worlds. Chart them on a map and you trace a constellation around the continent; visit them, even on the page, and you realize the United States is bigger, wilder, and more tidal than most of us imagine.