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91-568: Ostrów Lednicki is an island in the southern portion of Lake Lednica in Poland , located between the cities of Gniezno and Poznań . The word ostrów is an archaic Polish word for "holm" (i.e., river or lake island) - hence in English it is sometimes known as "Lednica Holm". A gród (a medieval Slavonic fortified settlement) was built here in the Middle Ages. Existing ruins of

182-567: A forcible expulsion of the remaining German population and mostly involuntary resettlement of the area with Soviet civilians. Russians were now presented as the most advanced and least chauvinist people of the Soviet Union. Large numbers of ethnic Russians and other Russian speakers were settled in the three Baltic countries – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – after their reoccupation in 1944 , while local languages, religion and customs were suppressed. David Chioni Moore classified it as

273-451: A "commuting" distance to an island that has enough resources to be sustainable. The presence of an island is marked by seabirds , differences in cloud and weather patterns, as well as changes in the direction of waves. It is also possible for human populations to have gone extinct on islands, evidenced by explorers finding islands that show evidence of habitation but no life. Not all islands were or are inhabited by maritime cultures. In

364-514: A "rafting event". This phenomenon is known as oceanic dispersal . Tropical storms have the capacity to transport species over great distances. Animals like tortoises can live for weeks without food or water, and are able to survive floating on debris in the sea. One case study showed that in 1995, fifteen iguanas survived a 300 km journey to Anguilla in the Caribbean , an island which no iguana had lived on previously. They survived floating on

455-521: A "reverse-cultural colonization", where the colonized perceived the colonizers as culturally inferior. Colonization of the three Baltic countries was closely tied to mass executions, deportations and repression of the native population. During both Soviet occupations ( 1940–1941 ; 1944–1991 ) a combined 605,000 inhabitants of the three countries were either killed or deported (135,000 Estonians, 170,000 Latvians and 320,000 Lithuanians), while their properties and personal belongings, along with ones who fled

546-655: A chapel, church and palace, thought to be the home of the first Kings of the Piast dynasty, have been roofed over for preservation. Today the ruins are of archaeological significance, and the site of the Museum of the Piast Dynasty, opened in 1969. It is Poland's largest open-air museum. The site is one of Poland's official national Historic Monuments ( Pomnik historii ), as one of the first such monuments designated on September 16, 1994. The list of national monuments

637-426: A detailed review of 1,288 islands found that they were home to 1,189 highly-threatened vertebrate species, which was 41 percent of the global figure. Coral bleaching is expected to occur with more frequency, threatening marine ecosystems, some of which island economies are dependent on. Some islands that are low-lying may cease to exist given high enough amounts of sea level rise. Tuvalu received media attention for

728-433: A domestic strategy when there is a widespread security threat within a nation and weapons are turned inward, as noted by Paul Virilio : Some instances of the burden of endo-colonization have been noted: The colonization of Mars is the proposed process of establishing and maintaining control of Martian land for exploitation and the possible settlement of Mars. Most colonization concepts focus on settling, but colonization

819-614: A few meters high, and are usually temporary. Changes in the flow speed, water level, and sediment content of the river may effect the rate of fluvial island formation and depletion. Permanent river islands also exist, the largest of which (that is completely inland) is Bananal Island in the Tocantins of Brazil, which has a maximum width of 55 kilometers. Lakes form for a variety of reasons, including glaciers , plate tectonics, and volcanism. Lake islands can form as part of these processes. The field of insular biogeography studies

910-402: A higher carrying capacity also have more genetic diversity , which promotes speciation . Oceanic islands, ones that have never been connected to shore, are only populated by life that can cross the sea. This means that any animals present on the island had to have flown there, in the case of birds or bats , were carried by such animals, or were carried in a sea current in what is known as

1001-477: A loss of almost all the infrastructure in Dominica. Sea level rise and other climate changes can reduce freshwater reserves, resulting in droughts . These risks are expected to decrease the habitability of islands, especially small ones. Beyond risks to human life, plant and animal life are threatened. It has been estimated that almost 50 percent of land species threatened by extinction live on islands. In 2017,

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1092-403: A mass of uprooted trees from a storm. Plant species are thought to be able to travel great distances of ocean. New Zealand and Australia share 200 native plant species, despite being separated by 1500 km. Continental islands, islands that were at one point connected to a continent, are expected to share a common history of plant and animal life up until the point that the island broke away from

1183-837: A minimum. Some islands became host to humans due to a land bridge or a continental island splitting from the mainland. Today, up to 10% of the world's population lives on islands. Islands are popular targets for tourism due to their perceived natural beauty, isolation, and unique cultures. Islands became the target of colonization by Europeans, resulting in the majority of islands in the Pacific being put under European control. Decolonization has resulted in some but not all island nations becoming self-governing , with lasting effects related to industrialisation , invasive species , nuclear weapons testing , and tourism . Islands and island countries are threatened by climate change . Sea level rise threatens to submerge nations such as Maldives ,

1274-743: A minority. Cultural attitudes related to communal ownership of land as well as a lack of individualistic decision-making may make some island cultures less compatible with the global capitalist economy, causing these nations to experience less economic growth. Islands have long been a popular target for tourism , thanks to their unique climates, cultures, and natural beauty. However, islands may suffer from poor transportation connectivity from airplanes and boats and strains on infrastructure from tourist activity. Islands in colder climates often rely on seasonal tourists seeking to enjoy nature or local cultures, and may only be one aspect of an island's economy. In contrast, tourism on tropical islands can often make up

1365-613: A permanent caisson , a steel or concrete structure built in a closed loop and then filled with sand. Some modern islands have been constructed by pouring millions of tons of sand into the sea, such as with Pearl Island in Qatar or the Palm Islands in Dubai. These islands are usually created for real estate development , and are sold for private ownership or construction of housing. Offshore oil platforms have also been described as

1456-524: A phenomenon where new oceanic crust is formed, pushing away older crust. Islands sitting on the continental shelf may be called continental islands. Other islands, like those that make up New Zealand , are what remains of continents that shrank and sunk beneath the sea. It was estimated that Zealandia , the continent-like area of crust that New Zealand sits on, has had 93% of its original surface area submerged. Some islands are formed when coral reefs grow on volcanic islands that have submerged beneath

1547-423: A press conference publicizing the ongoing submerging of the island country. Tuvalu signed a cooperation agreement with Australia agreeing to annually allow 280 of its citizens to become permanent residents of Australia. The Marshall Islands, a country of 1,156 islands, have also been identified as a country that may be existentially threatened by rising seas. Increasing intensity of tropical storms also increases

1638-483: A priority target of conservation efforts, to prevent the extinction of these species. Despite high levels of endemism, the total species richness , the total number of unique species in a region, is lower on islands than on mainlands. The level of species richness on islands is proportional to the area of that island, a phenomenon known as the species-area relationship . This is because larger areas have more resources and thus can support more organisms. Populations with

1729-508: A protective order over South East New Guinea, establishing an official colony in 1888. Germany however, annexed parts of the North. This annexation separated the entire region into the South, known as "The Territory of Papua" and North, known as "German New Guinea". Due to marginalisation produced by continuous Resettlement Policy, by 1969, political tensions and open hostilities developed between

1820-411: A restricted set of natural resources. However, these nations control some of the largest fisheries in the world, deposits of copper , gold , and nickel , as well as oil deposits . The natural beauty of island nations also makes them a magnet for tourism . Islands also have geopolitical value for naval bases , weapons testing , and general territorial control. One such example is French Polynesia ,

1911-476: A selection pressure for smaller animals that require less food. Having fewer predators would mean these animals did not need not be large to survive. Charles Darwin formulated the theory of natural selection through the study of island ecology. The species he observed on the Galápagos Islands , including tanager birds, contributed to his understanding of how evolution works. He first traveled to

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2002-509: A specific property known as adaptive radiation . In this process, a species that arrives on a group of islands rapidly becomes more diverse over time, splitting off into new species or subspecies. A species that reaches an island ecosystem may face little competition for resources, or may find that the resources that they found in their previous habitat are not available. These factors together result in individual evolutionary branches with different means of survival. The classical example of this

2093-414: A territory that receives substantial military expenditure and aid from France. Since the first discoveries of Polynesian, Micronesian , and other islands by Westerners, these nations have been the subject of colonization. Islands were the target of Christian missionaries . These missionaries faced resistance, but found success when some local chiefs used European support to centralize power. Beginning in

2184-519: A tree that is present in Australia, New Zealand, parts of South American, and New Guinea, places that today are geographically distant. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that these landmasses were once all part of the continent Gondwana and separated by tectonic drift. However, there are competing theories that suggest this species may have reached faraway places by way of oceanic dispersal. Species that colonize island archipelagos exhibit

2275-616: A type of island. Some atolls have been covered in concrete to create artificial islands for military purposes, such as those created by China in the South China Sea . These atolls were previously low-tide elevations, landmasses that are only above water during low tide . The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea indicates that these islands may not have the same legal status as a naturally occurring island, and as such may not confer

2366-515: Is Darwin's finches , a group of up to fifteen tanager species that are endemic to the Galápagos Islands. These birds evolved different beaks in order to eat different kinds of food available on the islands. The large ground finch has a large bill used to crack seeds and eat fruit. The Genovesa cactus finch prefers cacti as a food source, and has a beak adapted for removing pulp and flowers from cacti. The green warbler-finch (in

2457-828: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics , and oceanic islands, which have never been part of a continent. Oceanic islands can be formed from volcanic activity, grow into atolls from coral reefs , and form from sediment along shorelines, creating barrier islands . River islands can also form from sediment and debris in rivers. Artificial islands are those made by humans, including small rocky outcroppings built out of lagoons and large-scale land reclamation projects used for development. Islands are host to diverse plant and animal life. Oceanic islands have

2548-459: Is a broader ethical concept, which international space law has limited, and national space programs have avoided, instead focusing on human mission to Mars for exploring the planet . The settlement of Mars would require the migration of humans to the planet, the establishment of a permanent human presence, and the exploitation of local resources. No crewed missions to Mars have occurred, although there have been successful robotic missions to

2639-598: Is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue , and more distantly related to Latin aqua (water). The spelling of the word was modified in the 15th century because of a false etymology caused by an association with the Old French loanword isle , which itself comes from the Latin word insula . Islands often are found in archipelagos or island chains, which are collections of islands. These chains are thought to form from volcanic hotspots , areas of

2730-706: Is also one contender for the historical site of the personal baptism of Mieszko I, his wife Dobrawa of Bohemia , and his court, which took place on the Holy Saturday of April 14, 966. The date is the Baptism of Poland , the historical introduction of Christianity in Poland . The event also marks the beginning of the Polish state. The island is also the scene of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski 's historical 1876 novel An Ancient Tale . This Poland location article

2821-541: Is maintained by the National Heritage Board of Poland . The island is important in the national history of Poland. During the reign of the first ruler of the Polish state, Mieszko I , and Boleslaw the Brave , it stood as one of the main defensive and administrative centers of the kingdom. The ruined castle and other buildings here were constructed during Mieszko I's reign, just before the year 966. It

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2912-415: Is sometimes used synonymously with settling, as with colonisation in biology . Settler colonialism is a type of colonization structured and enforced by the settlers directly, while their or their ancestors' metropolitan country ( metropole ) maintains a connection or control through the settler's colonialism. In settler colonization, a minority group rules either through the assimilation or oppression of

3003-503: Is the apple snail , initially introduced to the U.S. by aquarium owners. It has since been transported by hurricanes across the Gulf Coast and neighboring islands. These species compete for resources with native animals, and some may grow so densely that they displace other forms of existing life. For hundreds of years, islands have been created through land reclamation . One of the first recorded instances of this when people of

3094-634: Is the giant tortoise of the Seychelles , though it is unknown if it grew in size before or after reaching the island. Larger animals such as the hippopotamus tend to become smaller, such as in the case of the pygmy hippopotamus . This is known as insular dwarfism . In the case of smaller animals, it has been hypothesized that animals on islands may have fewer predators and competitors, resulting in selection pressure towards larger animals. Larger animals may exhaust food resources quickly due to their size, causing malnutrition in their young, resulting in

3185-542: The Atlantic Ocean in search of an alternate route to the East Indies . These historians theorize that successful explorers were rewarded with recognition and wealth, leading others to attempt possibly dangerous expeditions to discover more islands, usually with poor results. About 10% of the world's population lives on islands. The study of the culture of islands is known as island studies . The interest in

3276-1055: The Goths were forced to cross into the Roman Empire, resulting in continuous war with Rome which played a major role in the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period there were large-scale movements of people establishing new colonies all over western Europe. The events of this time saw the development of many of the modern-day nations of Europe like the Franks in France and Germany and the Anglo-Saxons in England. In West Asia, during Sassanid Empire , some Persians established colonies in Yemen and Oman . The Arabs also established colonies in Northern Africa , Mesopotamia , and

3367-588: The Government of the Philippines and Moro Muslim rebel groups in Mindanao . Many colonists came to colonies for slaves to their colonizing countries, so the legal power to leave or remain may not be the issue so much as the actual presence of the people in the new country. This left the indigenous natives of their lands slaves in their own countries. The Canadian Indian residential school system

3458-521: The Islamic military campaign that captured the region in the 7th and 8th centuries. The transmigration program is an initiative of the Indonesian government to move landless people from densely populated areas of Java , but also to a lesser extent from Bali and Madura , to less populous areas of the country including Papua , Kalimantan , Sumatra , and Sulawesi . In 1884 Britain declared

3549-652: The Levant . The Vikings of Scandinavia also carried out a large-scale colonization. The Vikings are best known as raiders, setting out from their original homelands in Denmark , southern Norway , and southern Sweden , to pillage the coastlines of northern Europe. In time, the Vikings began trading and established colonies. The Vikings first came across Iceland and established colonies there before moving onto Greenland , where they built settlements that endured until

3640-577: The Marshall Islands , and Tuvalu completely. Increases in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones can cause widespread destruction of infrastructure and animal habitats. Species that live exclusively on islands are some of those most threatened by extinction . An island is an area of land surrounded by water on all sides that is distinct from a continent. There is no standard of size that distinguishes islands and continents . Continents have an accepted geological definition – they are

3731-507: The Polynesians . Many of the previous island settlements required traveling distances of less than 100 km (62 mi), whereas Polynesians may have traveled 2,000–3,200 km (1,200–2,000 mi) to settle islands such as Tahiti . They would send navigators to sail the ocean without the aid of navigational instruments to discover new islands for settlement. Between 1100 and 800 BC, Polynesians sailed East from New Guinea and

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3822-839: The Solomon Islands and reached the islands that make up the modern-day Fiji and Samoa . The furthest extent of this migration would be Easter Island in the East, and New Zealand in the South, with New Zealand's first settlements between 1250 and 1300. Historians have sought to understand why some remote islands have always been uninhabited, while others, especially in the Pacific Ocean , have long been populated by humans. Generally, larger islands are more likely to be able to sustain humans and thus are more likely to have been settled. Small islands that cannot sustain populations on their own can still be habitable if they are within

3913-499: The Solomon Islands created eighty such islands by piling coral and rock in the Lau Lagoon . One traditional way of constructing islands is with the use of a revetment . Sandbags or stones are dropped with a barge into the sea to bring the land level slightly out of the water. The island area is then filled with sand or gravel, followed by a construction of this revetment to hold it together. Islands have also been constructed with

4004-663: The Tsardom of Russia (later Russian Empire ), the Kingdom of England (later Great Britain ), the Netherlands , the Kingdom of Italy , the Kingdom of Prussia (now mostly Germany), Belgium , Denmark , and Sweden-Norway , and, beginning in the 18th century, the United States . Most of these countries had a period of almost complete power in world trade at some stage in the period from roughly 1500 to 1900. Beginning in

4095-457: The United States ' manifest destiny doctrine which furthered colonization. The term colonization is derived from the Latin words colere ("to cultivate, to till"), colonia ("a landed estate", "a farm") and colonus ("a tiller of the soil", "a farmer"), then by extension "to inhabit". Someone who engages in colonization, i.e. the agent noun, is referred to as a colonizer , while

4186-617: The West Bank is an additional form of colonization. This view is part of a key debate in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict . Law professors Steven Lubet and Jonathan Zasloff describe the " Zionism as settler colonialism " theory as politically motivated, derogatory and highly controversial. According to them, there are important differences between Zionism and settler colonialism, for instance: (1) Early Zionists did not seek to transport European culture into Israel, they sought to revive

4277-648: The indigenous peoples , or by establishing itself as the demographic majority through driving away, displacing or outright killing the indigenous people, as well as through immigration and births of metropolitan as well as other settlers. The European colonization of Australia , New Zealand , and other places in Oceania was fueled by explorers, and colonists often regarding the encountered landmasses as terra nullius ("empty land" in Latin). This resulted in laws and ideas such as Mexico 's General Colonization Law and

4368-414: The lithosphere where the mantle is hotter than the surrounding area. These hotspots would give rise to volcanoes whose lava would form the rock the islands are made of. For some islands, the movement of tectonic plates above stationary hotspots would form islands in a linear chain, with the islands further away from the hotspot being progressively older and more eroded , before disappearing under

4459-450: The sea as a natural barrier to the introduction of new species, causing the species that do reach the island to evolve in isolation. Continental islands share animal and plant life with the continent they split from. Depending on how long ago the continental island formed, the life on that island may have diverged greatly from the mainland due to natural selection . Humans have lived on and traveled between islands for thousands of years at

4550-682: The 15th century. The Vikings launched an unsuccessful attempt at colonizing an area they called Vinland , which is probably at a site now known as L'Anse aux Meadows , Newfoundland and Labrador , on the eastern coastline of Canada . In the Colonial Era, colonialism in this context refers mostly to Western European countries' colonization of lands mainly in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The main European countries active in this form of colonization included Spain , Portugal , France ,

4641-537: The 16th century, European states placed most of Oceania in under colonial administration . Pohnpei was colonized by Spain as early as 1526. It changed hands from Germany to Japan to the United States before joining the Federated States of Micronesia in 1982, maintaining a "free association" status with the U.S. Guam was a Spanish territory until 1898, and now is a unincorporated territory of

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4732-537: The Abkhaz language was banned. The ruling elite was purged of ethnic Abkhaz and by 1952 over 80% of the 228 top party and government officials and enterprise managers in Abkhazia were ethnic Georgians (there remained 34 Abkhaz, 7 Russians and 3 Armenians in these positions). For Königsberg area of East Prussia (modern Kaliningrad Oblast ) given to the Soviet Union at the 1945 Potsdam Conference Soviet control meant

4823-601: The Far Eastern provinces from the USSR. To make settlement of the inhospitable and undeveloped region more enticing, the Soviet government allowed private ownership of land. This led to many non-Jews to settle in the oblast to get a free farm. By the 1930s, a massive propaganda campaign developed to induce more Jewish settlers to move there. In one instance, a government-produced Yiddish film called Seekers of Happiness told

4914-570: The Germans were to become colonists, having control over the native people. These indigenous people were planned to be reduced to slaves or wholly annihilated. Many advanced nations currently have large numbers of guest workers / temporary work visa holders who are brought in to do seasonal work such as harvesting or to do low-paid manual labor. Guest workers or contractors have a lower status than workers with visas, because guest workers can be removed at any time for any reason. Colonization may be

5005-511: The Hawaiian islands being home to irrigated fields of taro, whereas in some islands, like Tahiti, breadfruit was more widely cultivated and fermented in order to preserve it. There is archeological evidence that Canary Islanders would chew the roots of ferns for sustenance, a practice that wore heavily on their molars . These islanders would also grow barley and raised livestock such as goats . Many island nations have little land and

5096-756: The JAO (1% of the total population), while ethnic Russians made up 92.7% of the JAO population. The JAO is Russia's only autonomous oblast and, aside of Israel, the world's only Jewish territory with an official status. In the First Aliyah , much of the Zionist settlement consisted of legal land purchases for agricultural colonies, or moshavot , for wine and citrus production. According to Elia Zuriek in his book "Israel's Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit", Israeli settlements in

5187-624: The Origin of Species . The first evidence of humans colonizing islands probably occurred in the Paleolithic era, 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Reaching the Indonesian islands of Flores and Timor would have required crossing distances of water of at least 29 km (18 mi). Some islands, such as Honshu , were probably connected to the mainland with a land bridge that allowed humans to colonize it before it became an island. The first people to colonize distant oceanic islands were

5278-483: The Romans often conquered what they regarded as 'civilized' peoples. As they moved north into Europe, they mostly encountered rural peoples/tribes with very little in the way of cities. In these areas, waves of Roman colonization often followed the conquest of the areas. Many of the current cities throughout Europe began as Roman colonies, such as Cologne , Germany, originally called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium by

5369-633: The Romans, and the British capital city of London , which the Romans founded as Londinium . The decline and collapse of the Roman Empire saw (and was partly caused by) the large-scale movement of people in Eastern Europe and Asia. This is largely seen as beginning with nomadic horsemen from Asia (specifically the Huns ) moving into the richer pasture land to the west, thus forcing the local people there to move further west and so on until eventually

5460-758: The Soviet government established the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Soviet Far East to create a homeland for the Jewish people. Another motive was to strengthen Soviet presence along the vulnerable eastern border. The region was often infiltrated by the Chinese; in 1927, Chiang Kai-shek had ended cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party , which further increased the threat. Japan also seemed willing and ready to detach

5551-481: The U.S. The decolonization era saw many island states achieve independence or some form of self-governance . Nuclear weapons testing on the Marshall Islands left many atolls destroyed or uninhabitable, causing the forced displacement of people from their home islands as well as increases in cancer rates due to radiation . Colonization has resulted in a decline of observance of traditional cultural practices in places such as Hawaii, where Native Hawaiians are now

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5642-537: The USSR budget from 1946 to 1990 than it received back. And of the money transferred back, a disproportionate amount was spent on the region's militarization and funding of repressive institutions, especially in the early years of the occupation . It has been calculated by a Latvian state-funded commission that the Soviet occupation cost the economy of Latvia a total of 185 billion euros. Conversely, Marxian economist and world-systems analyst Samir Amin asserts that, in contrast to colonialism, capital transfer in

5733-678: The USSR was used to develop poorer regions in the South and East with the wealthiest regions like Western Russia , Ukraine, and the Baltic Republics being the main source of capital. Estonian researcher Epp Annus acknowledges that the Soviet rule in the Baltic states did not possess every single characteristic of traditional colonialism since the Baltic states were already modern industrial European nation states with an established sense of national identity and cultural self-confidence prior to their Soviet invasion in 1940 and proposed that

5824-406: The continent. For example, the presence of freshwater fish on an island surrounded by ocean would indicate that it once was attached to a continent, since these fish cannot traverse the ocean on their own. Over the course of time, evolution and extinction changes the nature of animal life on a continental island, but only once it splits from the mainland. An example is that of the southern beech ,

5915-675: The country, were confiscated and given to the arriving colonists – Soviet military and NKVD personnel, as well as functionaries of the Communist Party and economic migrants from kolkhozes . The most dramatic case was Latvia, where the amount of ethnic Russians swelled from 168,300 (8.8%) in 1935 to 905,500 (34%) in 1989, whereas the proportion of ethnic Latvians fell from 77% in 1935 to 52% in 1989. Baltic states also faced intense economic exploitation , with Latvian SSR , for example, transferring 15.961 billion rubles (or 18.8% percent of its total revenue of 85 billion rubles) more to

6006-438: The culture of an indigenous people of the land, the culture of their ancestors (e.g., they left their European languages behind and adopted a Middle Eastern/Semitic one: Hebrew); (2) No settler colonial movement ever claimed to be "returning home"; (3) Jews had already been living in the "colonized" region for thousands of years. Both professors also point out that the academic journal where Wolfe published his essay fails to mention

6097-451: The deposition of sediment by waves . These islands erode and grow as the wind and waves shift. Barrier islands have the effect of protecting coastal areas from severe weather because they absorb some of the energy of large waves before they can reach the shore. A fluvial island is an island that forms from the erosion and sedimentation of debris in rivers; almost all rivers have some form of fluvial islands. These islands may only be

6188-426: The distances and frequency with which invasive species may be transported to islands. Floodwaters from these storms may also wash plants further inland than they would travel on their own, introducing them to new habitats. Agriculture and trade also have introduced non-native life to islands. These processes result in an introduction of invasive species to ecosystems that are especially small and fragile. One example

6279-400: The ecological processes that take place on islands, with a focus on what factors effect the evolution , extinction , and richness of species. Scientists often study islands as an isolated model of how the process of natural selection takes place. Island ecology studies organisms on islands and their environment. It has yielded important insights for its parent field of ecology since

6370-502: The habit of true warbler species) consumes spiders and insects that live on plants. Other examples of this phenomenon exist worldwide, including in Hawaii and Madagascar, and are not limited to island ecosystems. Species endemic to islands show a common evolutionary trajectory. Foster's rule (also known as the island rule), states that small mammals such as rodents evolve to become larger, known as island gigantism . One such example

6461-490: The initial Soviet occupation developed into a colonial rule gradually, as the local resistance turned into a hybrid coexistence with the Soviet power. The Soviet colonial rule never managed to fully establish itself and began rapidly disintegrating during perestroika , but after the restoration of independence, the Baltic states similarly had to deal with problems of a characteristically colonial nature, such as pollution , economic collapse and demographic tensions. In 1934,

6552-457: The islands as a naturalist on HMS Beagle in 1835, as part of a five-year circumnavigation of Earth. He wrote that "the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by a different set of beings". Through the study of the finches and other animals he realized that organisms survive by changing to adapt to their habitat. It would be over twenty years before he published his theories in On

6643-643: The largest landmass of a particular tectonic plate . Islands can occur in any body of water, including lakes , rivers , seas . Low-tide elevations , areas of land that are not above the surface during a high tide , are generally not considered islands. Islands that have been bridged or otherwise joined to a mainland with land reclamation are sometimes considered "de-islanded", but not in every case. The word island derives from Middle English iland , from Old English igland (from ig or ieg , similarly meaning 'island' when used independently, and -land carrying its contemporary meaning. Old English ieg

6734-458: The late 19th century, Imperial Japan also engaged in settler colonization, most notably in Hokkaido and Korea . While some European colonization focused on shorter-term exploitation of economic opportunities ( Newfoundland , for example, or Siberia ) or addressed specific goals such as settlers seeking religious freedom ( Massachusetts ), at other times long-term social and economic planning

6825-404: The mainland, they had no need for boats. The motivation for island exploration has been the subject of research and debate. Some early historians previously argued that early island colonization was unintentional, perhaps by a raft being swept out to sea. Others compare the motivations of Polynesian and similar explorers with those of Christopher Columbus , the explorer who sailed westward over

6916-589: The majority of the local economy and built environment . These islands sometimes also require consistent foreign aid on top of tourism in order to ensure economic growth. This reliance can result in social inequality and environmental degradation . During tourism downturns, these economies struggle to make up the lost inflow of cash with other industries. Climate change threatens human development on islands due to sea level rise , more dangerous tropical cyclones , coral bleaching , and an increase in invasive species . For example, in 2017 Hurricane Maria caused

7007-529: The past, some societies were found to have lost their seafaring ability over time, such as the case of the Canary Islands , which were occupied by an indigenous people since the island's first discovery in the first century until being conquered by the Spanish Empire in 1496. It has been hypothesized that since the inhabitants had little incentive for trade and had little to any contact with

7098-621: The person who gets colonized, i.e. the object of the agent noun or absolutive, is referred to as a colonizee , colonisee or the colonised . In ancient times, maritime nations such as the city-states of Greece and Phoenicia established colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean. Another period of colonization in ancient times was during the Roman Empire . The Roman Empire conquered large parts of Western Europe , North Africa , and West Asia . In North Africa and West Asia,

7189-597: The planet . Public space agencies (including NASA , ESA , Roscosmos , ISRO , the CNSA , among others) have explored colonization concepts, but have primarily focused on further robotic exploration of Mars and the possibility of crewed landings. Some space advocacy groups, such as the Mars Society and the National Space Society , as well as some private organizations, such as SpaceX , have promoted

7280-456: The same legal rights. Colonization Colonization ( British English : colonisation ) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples for the purpose of cultivation, trade, exploitation or settlement , setting up coloniality and often colonies , such as for agriculture , commonly pursued and maintained by, but distinct from, imperialism , mercantilism , or colonialism . Colonization

7371-789: The sea entirely. An example is the Hawaiian Islands , with the oldest island being 25 million years old, and the youngest, Hawaii , still being an active volcano . However, not all island chains are formed this way. Some may be formed all at once by fractures in the tectonic plates themselves, simultaneously creating multiple islands. One supporting piece of evidence is that of the Line Islands , which are all estimated to be 8 million years old, rather than being different ages. Other island chains form due to being separated from existing continents. The Japanese archipelago may have been separated from Eurasia due to seafloor spreading ,

7462-617: The story of a Jewish family that fled the Great Depression in the United States to make a new life for itself in Birobidzhan. Some 1,200 non-Soviet Jews chose to settle in Birobidzhan. The Jewish population peaked in 1948 at around 30,000, about one-quarter of the region's population. By 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were only 1,628 people of Jewish descent remaining in

7553-549: The study of islands is due to their unique cultures and natural environments that differ from mainland cultures. This is for a few reasons: First, the obvious political and geographic isolation from mainland cultures. Second, unique restraints on resources and ecology creating marine-focused cultures with a focus on fishing and sailing. Third, a lasting historical and political significance of islands. The Polynesian diet got most of its protein from fishing. Polynesians were known to fish close to shore, as well as in deep water. It

7644-450: The surface. When these coral islands encircle a central lagoon , the island is known as an atoll . The formation of reefs and islands related to those reefs is aided by the buildup of sediment in shallow patches of water. In some cases, tectonic movements lifting a reef out of the water by as little as 1 meter can cause sediment to accumulate and an island to form. Barrier islands are long, sandy bars that form along shorelines due to

7735-438: The time of Charles Darwin . In biology, endemism is defined as the phenomenon where species or genus is only found in a certain geographical area. Islands isolate land organisms from others with water, and isolate aquatic organisms living on them with land. Island ecosystems have the highest rates of endemism globally. This means that islands contribute heavily to global biodiversity . Areas with high lives of biodiversity are

7826-422: The use of non-indigenous colonial languages to the exclusion of any indigenous languages from administrative (and often, any public) use. In the 1920s, the Soviet regime implemented the so-called korenization policy in an attempt to win the trust of non-Russians by promoting their ethnic cultures and establishing for them many of the characteristic institutional forms of the nation-state. The early Soviet regime

7917-472: Was hostile to even voluntary assimilation, and tried to de-Russify assimilated non-Russians. Parents and students not interested in the promotion of their national languages were labeled as displaying "abnormal attitudes". The authorities concluded that minorities unaware of their ethnicities had to be subjected to Belarusization , Polonization , etc. By the early 1930s, the Soviet regime introduced limited Russification; allowing voluntary assimilation, which

8008-534: Was identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada) as colonization through depriving the youth of First Nations in Canada of their languages and cultures. During the mid 20th century, there was the most dramatic and devastating attempt at colonization, and that was pursued with Nazism. Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and their supporters schemed for a mass migration of Germans to Eastern Europe, where some of

8099-429: Was involved for both parties, but more on the colonizing countries themselves, based on elaborate theory-building (note James Oglethorpe 's Colony of Georgia in the 1730s and Edward Gibbon Wakefield 's New Zealand Company in the 1840s). Colonization may be used as a method of absorbing and assimilating foreign people into the culture of the imperial country. One instrument to this end is linguistic imperialism , or

8190-404: Was often a popular demand. The list of nationalities was reduced from 172 in 1927 to 98 in 1939, by revoking support for small nations in order to merge them into bigger ones. For example, Abkhazia was merged into Georgia and thousands of ethnic Georgians were sent to Abkhazia. The Abkhaz alphabet was changed to a Georgian base, Abkhazian schools were closed and replaced with Georgian schools,

8281-470: Was reported that Rapa Nui people were known to fish as far as 500 km (310 mi) from shore at coral reefs. Spear , line , and net fishing were all used, to catch tuna as well as sharks and stingrays . Island cultures also cultivate native and non-native crops. Polynesians grew the native yam , taro , breadfruit , banana , coconut and other fruits and vegetables. Different island climates made different resources more important, such as

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