Islands

Scilly's smallest inhabited island, with Atlantic swell at Hell Bay, prehistoric cairns on Shipman Head and sheltered Rushy Bay

1.2 km² · Cornwall

Cornwall Wildlife Trust island a mile off Looe, with a self-guided trail, nesting seabirds, grey seals and a medieval chapel site

Uninhabited twin-hilled island with the ruined cottages of families removed in 1855, prehistoric tombs on both hills and empty beaches

0.37 km² · Cornwall

Scilly's southernmost community, with the Troy Town maze, a sandbar walk to Gugh and its standing stone, and wide Atlantic views

1.4 km² · Cornwall

Scilly's largest island, with Hugh Town's harbour, the Garrison walls and Star Castle, prehistoric tombs and boats to every off-island

6.4 km² · Cornwall

Tresco Abbey Garden's subtropical plants, Cromwell's Castle and King Charles's Castle, and white-sand bays on an island you can walk round

3 km² · Cornwall

Three red-sandstone tidal islands off West Kirby, walked to across the sands at low tide, with grey seals and wading birds

Merseyside

Small island with the ruins of Piel Castle, built by Furness Abbey's monks, and the Ship Inn, whose landlord is crowned King

Cumbria

Long island off Barrow with Irish Sea beaches and nature reserves at both ends, known for eiders, gulls and natterjack toads

13 km² · Cumbria

Thames Estuary island with Minster Abbey, clay cliffs full of fossils, the Elmley marshes' birds and Leysdown's beaches

89 km² · Kent

RSPB island in the River Ore, visited on booked trips from Orford for avocets, terns and hides over brackish lagoons

1 km² · Suffolk

Uninhabited barrier island of dunes, saltmarsh and empty sands off Brancaster, with nesting terns and wintering geese

2.8 km² · Norfolk

Steep limestone island in the Bristol Channel with Victorian gun batteries, medieval priory remains, wild peonies and gull colonies

0.2 km² · Somerset

Low Hebridean island of more than 30 sandy beaches, corncrakes on the RSPB reserve and protected dark night skies

74 km²

Hebridean island of Kiloran Bay's golden sands, rhododendron gardens at Colonsay House and a low-tide walk to Oronsay Priory

41 km²

Community-owned island off Kintyre with the Twin Beaches, Achamore Gardens and a ruined medieval chapel, 20 minutes by ferry

14 km²

Fertile limestone island in Loch Linnhe with St Moluag's medieval cathedral, an Iron Age broch and ferries from Oban and Port Appin

22 km²

Quiet slate island for cycling, with the quarry villages of Cullipool and Toberonochy and views across to Scarba and the Garvellachs

14 km²

Low, windswept island of white beaches and surf, with the Ringing Stone and the Skerryvore lighthouse museum at Hynish

79 km²

Community-owned since 2018 and a five-minute crossing from Mull, with woodland and shore walks past townships emptied in the Clearances

18 km²

Tidal island off Campbeltown with a Stevenson lighthouse and seven sea caves, one holding an 1887 painting of the Crucifixion

0.57 km²

Car-free slate island of whitewashed cottages around flooded quarries, home of the World Stone Skimming Championships and a folk museum

0.29 km²

Tidal island off the Ross of Mull where Stevenson strands David Balfour in Kidnapped, with white sands and pink granite knolls

2.3 km²

The 'Isles of the Sea', with early monastic beehive cells and a chapel on Eileach an Naoimh, traditionally founded by St Brendan

2.2 km²

Remote farm island beyond Ulva, reached on foot by a long hill track, with views out to Staffa and the Treshnish Isles

4.6 km²

Farm island at the tip of the Tayvallich peninsula, reached by a short causeway, with shore walks looking out to Jura

3.2 km² · Argyll and Bute

Tidal island reached across the Strand from Colonsay, with a 14th-century priory and carved crosses, and an RSPB farm for corncrakes

5.1 km²

Community-owned Small Isle with its own renewable grid, the pitchstone ridge of An Sgùrr and the squeaking Singing Sands

30 km²

Long island off Skye with flat-topped Dùn Caan, hand-built Calum's Road, the cleared township of Hallaig and a distillery

62 km²

Mountain island and National Nature Reserve, with the Rùm Cuillin, Kinloch Castle, red deer and a huge Manx shearwater colony

107 km²

Small island under the Skye Bridge where Gavin Maxwell spent his final months, with a Stevenson lighthouse and wildlife hide

Community-owned island off Ardmair, once a herring station and flour mill, with waymarked walks to the summit and bothy-style stays

1.6 km²

Westernmost Small Isle, run by the National Trust for Scotland, with Canna House's Gaelic archive, puffins on Sanday and a sheltered harbour

11 km²

Smallest of the Small Isles, a family-farmed island with a tearoom at Port Mòr, a sandy bay at Gallanach and seals offshore

5.2 km²

Pentland Firth island whose last families left in 1962, with an empty village, a lighthouse and the Swilkie tide race nearby

3.7 km²

Scatter of islands off Coigach, visited by boat for seals, seabirds and sea caves, with a short landing on Tanera Mòr

7.6 km²

Flat machair island off North Uist's west coast, reached by causeway, with a long sandy beach facing the Atlantic

8.6 km²

Low island at the top of the Uists, with a three-mile west beach, flower-rich machair and the ferry to Harris

11 km²

Small island of Eriskay ponies and white beaches, where Bonnie Prince Charlie first landed in 1745 and the SS Politician ran aground

7.4 km²

Causeway island between the Uists, with the shellfish harbour at Kallin, the Uist Wool mill and a boat museum

6.8 km²

Cliff-bound island south of Barra, abandoned in 1912, with a ruined village above the bay and big seabird cliffs

6.3 km² · Na h-Eileanan Siar

Low machair islands west of North Uist, home to one of Britain's largest grey seal colonies each autumn

3.6 km² · Na h-Eileanan Siar

Fishing island joined to Harris by bridge, with a moorland walk to Eilean Glas, the first lighthouse built in the Outer Hebrides

6.8 km²

Abandoned crofting island off Hushinish, scene of a 1934 rocket-mail experiment, with sandy bays and views back to the Harris hills

11 km²

Privately owned islands in the Minch with 120-metre dolerite columns and one of Britain's largest puffin colonies

1.7 km² · Na h-Eileanan Siar

Uninhabited since 1974 and the setting of the BBC's Castaway 2000, with white beaches, machair and ruined villages to walk between

14 km²

Tidal island reached across the North Uist sands, with the ruined Edwardian mansion of archaeologist Erskine Beveridge and an old chapel site

2.6 km² · Na h-Eileanan Siar

Causeway island south of Barra with white beaches back to back across a neck of dunes, and the Annie Jane wreck memorial

9.4 km²

A ten-mile coast road to cycle, Millport's Victorian seafront and the Cathedral of the Isles, often called Britain's smallest cathedral

12 km²

Buddhist-owned island in Lamlash Bay, with a hill climb up Mullach Mòr, St Molaise's cave and free-roaming Eriskay ponies and Soay sheep

2.6 km²

Privately owned island south of Great Cumbrae with an early lighthouse site (1757), a 16th-century castle keep and a seal colony

2.8 km²

Hilly island with Midhowe's broch and stalled cairn, Taversoe Tuick's two-storey tomb and the Westness heritage walk along the shore

47 km²

Low island ringed by white-sand beaches, with the Quoyness chambered cairn, grey seals and a tidal walk to Start Point lighthouse

50 km² · Orkney Islands

Low Orkney island 25 minutes by ferry from Kirkwall, with the estate village of Balfour, a Baronial castle and Burroughston Broch

27 km²

Barrier-linked island with St Margaret's Hope, the Tomb of the Eagles clifftop cairn and wartime batteries on Hoxa Head

49 km²

Island of sandy bays with the Vat of Kirbister sea arch, seabird cliffs and Whitehall, once a busy herring port

34 km² · Orkney Islands

North Isles island with Noltland Castle, Pierowall village, puffins at Castle o'Burrian and the RSPB seabird cliffs of Noup Head

48 km²

Barrier-linked island with blockship wrecks, the dune beach at the fourth barrier, a fossil and heritage centre, and the causeway to Hunda

9.6 km²

Where Earl Magnus was killed in 1117, with a roofless round-towered church, a memorial on the spot and an RSPB reserve for waders

6 km² · Orkney Islands

Small Scapa Flow island whose wartime trail passes gun batteries, the Stanger Head signal station and the Cletts sea stacks

9.3 km²

Small farming island in Hoy Sound with two Stevenson lighthouses, a quiet road circuit and close views of Hoy's hills

3.9 km²

Seaweed-eating sheep kept to the shore by a stone dyke, the UK's tallest land-based lighthouse and a bird observatory for migrants

7.6 km² · Orkney Islands

Tiny island with Cubbie Roo's Castle, one of Scotland's oldest stone castles, a Norse-era chapel and Edwin Muir's childhood farm

3 km²

Red granite island near Brae, walked for its cliff path to the Hams, sea stacks, sandy coves and a small lighthouse

17 km²

Britain's most northerly inhabited island, with Hermaness's seabird cliffs above Muckle Flugga, Muness Castle, Viking longhouse sites and Bobby's Bus Shelter

119 km²

Fishing island with Symbister's harbour, a restored Hanseatic trading booth and Hugh MacDiarmid's former home at Sodom

19 km²

Bridge-linked pair of islands south of Scalloway, with the fishing village of Hamnavoe, Meal and Minn beaches and the Kettla Ness walk

7.1 km²

National Trust for Scotland island midway to Orkney, with a bird observatory for rare migrants, puffin cliffs and its own knitwear

8.1 km² · Shetland Islands

Remote island of great skuas and the Kame, among Britain's highest sea cliffs, where islanders still keep Yule on 6 January

13 km² · Shetland Islands

Home of Mousa Broch, the best-preserved Iron Age broch, where storm petrels return to nest in the walls on summer nights

1.8 km²

National nature reserve whose 181-metre Noup cliffs hold thousands of nesting gannets, with puffins, great skuas and a summer visitor centre

3.3 km²

Shetland's most easterly community, three rocky islets round a sheltered harbour, good for migrant birds and Bound Skerry lighthouse

2.4 km² · Shetland Islands

Island of sea caves, arches and stacks, with a handful of residents and an excavated Norse farmhouse at Da Biggins

8 km² · Shetland Islands

Green isle joined to Bigton by a sand tombolo, with the ruined chapel where Pictish silver was found in 1958

0.87 km²

Small crofting island between Scalloway and Burra, crossed by bridges, with quiet cycling roads and a rocky shore popular with kayakers

2.8 km²

Tidal island off Cramond, reached along a causeway lined with wartime anti-boat pylons, with gun emplacements and views up the Forth

0.11 km² · Edinburgh

Island in the Forth with Scotland's best-preserved medieval abbey buildings, wartime gun batteries and a tunnel, grey seals and seabirds

0.12 km² · Fife

Puffin island at the mouth of the Forth, with medieval priory ruins, Scotland's oldest lighthouse beacon and a bird observatory

0.59 km² · Fife

Largest of the Islands of Fleet, a low-tide walk from Carrick shore to the site of an early Christian chapel and graveyard

0.25 km²

National Trust for Scotland bird sanctuary in the Urr estuary, a low-tide walk from Rockcliffe for oystercatchers, ringed plovers and views

Monastery island off Tenby, with Cistercian monks, a medieval priory, a small village, a lighthouse and sandy Priory Bay

1.8 km²

RSPB island off St Davids with high sea cliffs, choughs, a heathland walk and a big grey seal pupping colony

2.5 km²

Red sandstone island with Britain's first bird observatory, puffins, storm petrels and Manx shearwaters, visited only on stays of several nights

0.97 km²

Small island beside Caldey holding Wales's largest cormorant colony and other cliff-nesting seabirds, seen on cruises from Tenby

Pilgrimage island off the tip of Llŷn, Europe's first Dark Sky Sanctuary, with abbey ruins, a bird observatory and grey seals

1.8 km² · Gwynedd

Small tidal island at the north end of Rhossili Bay, with an Iron Age bank and the remains of a medieval chapel

Swansea

Wildlife Trust island at the mouth of the Teifi, with grey seals and nesting seabirds, seen from the Gwbert cliffs and boats

0.15 km² · Ceredigion

Bristol Channel island where Marconi sent the first radio signals over open sea, with Victorian gun batteries and a lighthouse

0.23 km² · Cardiff

Uninhabited island off Penmon Point with a ruined monastic tower, seabird ledges and grey seals, seen on cruises from Beaumaris

0.23 km² · Anglesey