Island
Melville Island
Natural Earth’s outline of Melville Island measures about 40,400 km² (15,600 mi²), the 31st largest of the 81 islands on sizeversus, and about the same size as Switzerland.
100 km
- Switzerland
- Melville Island
The numbers
- 40,400km²Area, measured15,600 mi² · Natural Earth outline
- 42,100km²Area, publishedWikidata · 4.1% above our measure
The area is measured from the outline drawn above, on the WGS84 ellipsoid; the published figure is shown beside it, and a water body is kept only if the two are within 10%.
What the numbers say about Melville Island
- Greenland (island), the largest of the 81 islands ranked on sizeversus, is 53.7× the size of Melville Island; Melville Island ranks 31st.
- Melville Island sits between Axel Heiberg Island (41,400 km²) and Marajó (37,400 km²) in the ranking.
- Counted as a country, Melville Island would be larger than 78 of the 212 countries listed on sizeversus and would rank 135th by area, between Switzerland (41,400 km²) and Bhutan (40,400 km²).
- It is larger than 10 of the 51 US states and districts (the biggest of them is Maryland, 25,500 km²) and smaller than 41.
- It is larger than 4 of the 31 provinces and regions of China (the biggest of them is Hainan, 33,800 km²) and smaller than 27.
- The closest Chinese province is Hainan (33,800 km²): Melville Island is 1.19× the size of Hainan.
- On a standard web map (Web Mercator), a place at 76°N is drawn about 16.0× too large in area, so Melville Island looks bigger there than it is.
- Laid out flat, Melville Island stretches about 267 km north to south and 334 km east to west.
- Our measured 40,400 km² is 4.1% below Wikidata’s published figure of 42,100 km². Published areas of lakes and seas move with the water level and with what is counted, so a few percent is expected.
About the same size as
Countries
Where it lies
Natural Earth’s outlines of Canada contain or lie within 4 km of the outline of Melville Island. That is what its geometry says, and it is not a statement about who owns the water or where any border runs in it.
Where Melville Island ranks
Melville Island is the 31st largest of the 81 islands on sizeversus, ranked by measured area.
Compare Melville Island
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Sources and method
- Outline
- Natural Earth, 1:10m Geography Regions (geography_regions_polys), public domain (Geography Regions (geography_regions_polys)). Outlines of lakes are drawn at 1:10 million.
- Boundary
- A lake or a sea has no legal boundary of its own. The outline is a cartographic one, and the page says so by showing the measured area beside the published one.
- Area basis
- Measured outline: computed on the WGS84 ellipsoid from the full-detail outline and shown rounded. Published figure: Wikidata (CC0), fetched 2026-11-11. An outline is kept within 10% of the published figure and matched to other places automatically within 5%.
- Shore
- Countries whose Natural Earth outline contains or comes close to the water's outline; computed, not a statement of ownership.
- Drawing
- Each outline is projected with an equal-area projection centred on its own centroid, so areas stay true and two can be laid over each other.
- Data built
- 2026-11-11