ABSTRACT
Some of the world’s largest nations are insular. Indonesia, at around 192 million people, has fewer inhabitants than only China, India and the USA. Japan (c. 123 m) is the seventh largest nation in the world; the Philippines (c. 64 m) comes 14th and the United Kingdom (c. 58 m), 16th. In terms of area, Indonesia at 1.9 million km2 is the world’s 15th largest country; Greenland, at almost 2.2 million km2 is even bigger, in 13th place. On occasion, some of these island nations have had economic and/or political power commensurate with their size. The United Kingdom entered the twentieth century as the world’s leading power and controlled one-fifth of the world’s land surface and a quarter of its population. Japan, too, had an extensive regional empire in Asia, stretching into Australasia on occasion, during the twentieth century. Upon recovery from its eventual defeat in World War II, Japan, like Germany, made a remarkably quick recovery and ended the twentieth century as one of the world’s mightiest economies.
