Archipelago

An archipelago is a group of islands, often clustered in a sea or ocean. The term can also include the waters surrounding those islands.

Island: A landmass smaller than a continent and surrounded by water. An archipelago is made up of islands, though definitions vary on how many are required.
Hotspot (geology): A long-lived source of magma beneath a tectonic plate, often producing volcanoes as the plate moves. A moving plate over a hotspot can create a linear island chain.
Hawaiian Islands: A chain of volcanic islands and atolls in the central Pacific Ocean. The chain illustrates island formation above a moving-plate hotspot.
Exclusive economic zone: A maritime zone in which a state has special rights to explore and use marine resources. Island groups can generate extensive maritime zones around their coasts.
Island chain: A sequence of islands arranged along a line or arc. An island chain describes arrangement; an archipelago can have a less linear form.
Plate tectonics: The theory that Earth’s outer shell is divided into moving plates. Plate motion creates many volcanic and uplifted island chains.
Island arc: A curved chain of volcanic islands formed above a subduction zone. Subduction builds many archipelagos in curved volcanic belts.
Japanese archipelago: An island chain off the eastern coast of Asia, including Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. Its volcanic islands lie along active tectonic boundaries.
Archipelagic state: A state constituted wholly or mainly by one or more archipelagos. International law gives qualifying states rules for drawing archipelagic baselines.
Island group: A collection of islands considered together as a geographic unit. This broad phrase overlaps with archipelago but does not specify its usual clustered setting.

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