Island and Lake Recursion (Island Week 2)
(It’s the last day of Island Week 2 here at GSS, which means we’re almost done with posting about islands. And it’s lasted about a week.)
Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada is officially the world’s largest island that is located within a lake.
That’s pretty simple, but within the island there are an additional 180 lakes…
Within one of those lakes, Mindemoya Lake (to be precise), is the largest island, in a lake, on an island, in a lake (in the world). Still with me?
But we’ve missed out a step! On the island of Sumatra in Indonesia we find Lake Toba, and its principal island of Samosir - which at 630 square km is easily the largest island, in a lake, on a island.
After Samosir, the second largest island within a lake is Glover Island, which is in the Grand Lake on the island of Newfoundland.
However, Glover Island’s largest lake also has many islands, of which the largest is about 2 acres. This tiny, unnamed island is therefore the largest island, in a lake, on an island, in a lake, on an island!
Unfortunately, it has no lakes in which we might find further islands. 
Seeing as it’s island week, we’ve left out many additional facts about the largest lakes found on islands (some of which are larger that the lakes containing islands we’ve mentioned here) but I think this post has been confusing enough!
Wikipedia: Manitoulin Island, Samosir & Glover Island
Thanks to Dee, kejoad, Daryl, Chris W, Boing boing, Elbruz.org and World Island Info.
I think you end up with a stone in a puddle if you keep looking…
As Google Earth resolution improves Jel will be rigth in a couple of years
Ah, but Toba is a caldera isn’t it? So, it’s an island on a lake in a volcano on an island.
You also missed this one, or maybe you are saving it for last. It’s Lake Manicouagan which has René-Levasseur Island in it’s middle, which has many many lakes with islands on it’s 72Km diameter bulk. And then it’s got Mount Babel in the middle of the island. OK, it’s the third largest crater on earth, it’s pretty kewl.
Anybody know where Mooselvania (island) is?
Brilliant!
Tom we actually already featured the The Manicouagan Impact Crater back in April 05.
It seems we’re running out of simple world records…
Is anybody else dizzy?
This island/lake site may be of interest.
It’s nice to know I’m ahead of my time: now, if it was a cherry in the glass of a gorgeous blonde floating in the jacuzzi of a stretch limo on that island, I’d be starting to thing someone was setting us up here…
thanks for this funny though informative article!
I published on my personal blog a post which is basically a translation in French (with due credit and linkage) of your post. I hope you will not mind. (sorry I couldn’t find how to trackback this post).
I remember suggesting a couple more similar sights during Island Week last year:
1. Placemark: Lake Tempe, Sulawesi, Philippines / Google Earth. If you look carefully, it looks like there is a 7-level island/lake system, although the smallest levels are artificial, as mentioned in this GEC post.
2. Completely natural is the Placemark: Taal volcano / Google Earth, still in the Philippines, with its crater lake. A 5-level system.
3. Also a volcano, the very spectacular Placemark: Krenitsyn / Google Earth. Only a 3-level Russian doll case (of course!) but an awesome sight, check out http://www.lkirchner.de/onekotan/onekotan/krenitsyn/krenitsyn.html“>these photos.