Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it [regardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity]."[1] The term is often politically, economically and/or demographically more significant than politically associated remote territories, such as exclaves or oceanic islands situated outside the continental shelf.

In geography, "mainland" can denote the continental (i.e. non-insular) part of any polity or the main island within an island nation. In geopolitics, "mainland" is sometimes used interchangeably with terms like metropole as an antonym to overseas territories. In the sense of "heartland", mainland is the opposite of periphery. In some language a separate concept of "mainland" is missing and is replaced with a "continental portion".

The term is relative: in Tasmania, continental Australia is the mainland, while to residents of Flinders Island, the main island of Tasmania is also "the mainland", although the geological Australian continent includes all the former plus the island of New Guinea and all the smaller islands (e.g. the Torres Strait Islands) in between.

Prominent usages of the term mainland edit

Continental edit

This list denotes prominent usages of the term "mainland" to distinguish the islands of a continent from the mainland of a continent through a geopolitical lens.

Internal edit

This list denotes prominent usages of the term "mainland" to distinguish between distinct regions within a single country based on an "islands-to-mainland" relationship. Note that the "mainland" can sometimes consist of a large island rather than a continental landmass.

Internal (disputed) edit

This list denotes prominent internal usages of the term "mainland" that are disputed.

Irredentist edit

This list denotes prominent usages of the term "mainland" to distinguish between distinct regions within an irredentist region

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ "MAINLAND | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary". Archived from the original on 2017-07-20.
  2. ^ Edles, Laura Desfor (2003). "'Race,' 'Ethnicity,' and 'Culture' in Hawai'i: The Myth of the 'Model Minority' State" Archived 2023-05-28 at the Wayback Machine. In Loretta I. Winters and Herman L. DeBose (ed.) New Faces in a Changing America: Multiracial Identity in the 21st Century. SAGE Publications. p. 241. ISBN 9780761923008.
  3. ^ "United Airlines". Archived from the original on April 2, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  4. ^ Stuck at the Border, Point Roberts Residents May Get This Help Getting to the Mainland Archived 2021-07-09 at the Wayback Machine - Centralia Chronicle 17 Aug 2020
  5. ^ (in Ukrainian) Crimean channel ATR resumes broadcasting in mainland Ukraine Archived 2015-06-17 at the Wayback Machine, Ukrayinska Pravda (4 June 2015)