Talk:Islands of the Arctic Ocean

Should this be renamed as "Arctic" or "Arctic Ocean"? It would seem a bit more sensible as a region if the North Pole was included... although I'm not sure about whether Greenland, northern bits of Canada etc should also be in here. (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:19, 13 Jan 2006 (EST)

This article goes with the various Island nations that are in the Oceans. So it should stay as named. However, I think it might be helpful to also have an Arctic regional article to balance Antarctica, but as the Arctic is a body of water should we be writing about it, or should we have an articles about the Arctic circle or Lands of the midnight sun? -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:49, 13 Jan 2006 (EST)

None of the islands listed here are 'nations' though. And Antarctica is a clearly delineated continent, so it's not directly comparable. (WT-en) Jpatokal 00:34, 15 Jan 2006 (EST)

The islands are all mentioned in the CIA factbook as countries. Similarly they are on the List of countries and territories. Besides Antarctica is not a country either, so these places all have about the same status, I think. Mostly uninhabited places of scientific and of mild tourism interest. -- (WT-en) Huttite 07:15, 15 Jan 2006 (EST)

While I did not care much about this article when I first came across, I now think the scope of this article overlaps with Arctic, since most of the Arctic islands mentioned here are associated with certain countries mentioned in Arctic, and they can be explained in the main article. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 17:25, 25 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

I don't feel strongly either way. "Islands of the Arctic" does feel arbitrary to me, as I presume travelling to Iceland or the Faroe Islands has more in common with the mainland Arctic than a truly remote place like Ellesmere Island or Franz Josef Land. This article's current content is also redundant and not very compelling, except for the list of expedition tours. Gerode (talk) 16:16, 26 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

And it seems the expedition tours might visit also places that aren't islands, such as the North Pole (mentioned as a destination) and Canada's mainland coast. I suppose a merger would mean that the Other destinations section would need to be split.

Here the islands are divided into Canada, Russia and the rest, where the rest (except the North Pole, which isn't an island, and perhaps ATOW1996) belong to the Nordic countries, 3–6 islands in each group (in this context, I feel Greenland should be grouped with Iceland and the Faroe Islands rather than with Canada and Alaska). I assume we could list also some Alaskan islands. In Arctic, we have four national parks and nature reserves, in addition to the North Pole and a few islands and archipelagos (and an itinerary).

The textual content (Understand, Get in etc.) is meagre in both and could well be merged. All in all, I don't see any compelling reason to keep the two articles separate. The big differences are between the Faroe Islands, Finland, Iceland, Norway proper (i.e.except for far-off Svalbard, Jan Mayen and Bear Island), Sweden and the rest, not between mainland and islands. The Siberian coast is probably more similar to Greenland than to the mild and relatively densely inhabited Norwegian coast.

–LPfi (talk) 08:03, 27 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Let's discuss the breadcrumbing of Greenland on the talk:Greenland page, keeping in mind that it's part of North America and much closer to Canada than to any other place. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:38, 27 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Both these are extra-hierarchical articles, so a merger won't affect the breadcrumbing. In Understand, Eat and Drink, Greenland can be discussed together with Arctic Canada and Alaska, and perhaps Arctic Russia (which probably have similar cuisine and alcohol issues), but that doesn't need to affect the grouping in Other destinations. There needs to be some grouping, but my suggestion above wasn't the result of extensive thinking. –LPfi (talk) 10:00, 27 October 2026 (UTC)Reply

Support merger per Sbb1413. Ground Zero (talk) 16:16, 30 October 2026 (UTC)Reply