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Mountain landscape in Madagascar   Africa has only one large island, Madagascar, which occupies the fourth position in the world; to find the next island, Socotra, which belongs moreover to an Asian country, you have to get out of the first hundred positions!

   The other biggest islands are found mainly off the coasts of Madagascar or between it and Tanzania, in the Gulf of Guinea or in the central Atlantic, between Morocco and Senegal; in the ranking we also have a lake island.

   The country with the most islands in this ranking is Spain, which obviously is not part of Africa, but to which the Canary archipelago belongs; the third largest island, Réunion, is also dependent on a European nation, France.


Island Area (km²)
Area (sq mi)
Country
Madagascar (1) 586,500 226,449 Madagascar
Socotra (2) 3,665 1,415 Yemen
Réunion 2,512 970 France
Tenerife (3) 2,034 785 Spain (Canary Islands)
Bioko 2,017 779 Equatorial Guinea
Mauritius (4) 1,865 720 Mauritius
Zanzibar 1,666 643 Tanzania
Fuerteventura 1,656 639 Spain (Canary Islands)
Gran Canaria 1,560 602 Spain (Canary Islands)
Grande Comore 1,146 442 Comoros
Santiago 991 383 Cape Verde
Pemba 988 381 Tanzania
São Tomé 854 330 São Tomé and Príncipe
Lanzarote 806 311 Spain (Canary Islands)
Santo Antão 779 301 Cape Verde
Madeira 759 293 Portugal
La Palma 708 273 Spain (Canary Islands)
Dahlak Kebir 663 256 Eritrea
Ukerewe (5) 647 250 Tanzania
Boa Vista 620 239 Cape Verde
Sherbro 600 232 Sierra Leone
Mafia 518 200 Tanzania
Djerba (6) 514 198 Tunisia


(1) Fourth largest island in the world.
(2) It is not part of an African country, but rather of Asia.
(3) The largest of the African islands in the Atlantic Ocean, as well as the one where the highest altitude is reached.
(4) Second most populated African island after Madagascar.
(5) A lake island in Lake Victoria, the largest in Africa.
(6) Largest African island in the Mediterranean Sea.