An archipelago is a group of islands closely scattered in a body of water.

Usually, this body of water is

the ocean, but it can also be a lake or river.

Most archipelagoes are made of oceanic islands. This means the islands were formed by volcanoes erupting
from the ocean floor. An archipelago made up of oceanic islands is called an island arc.

Many island arcs were formed over a single “hot spot.” The Earth’s crustshifted while the hot spot stayed put,
creating a line of islands that show exactly the direction the crust moved.

The Hawaiian Islands continue to form this way, with a hot spot remaining relatively stable while the
Pacific tectonic plate moves northwest. There are 137 Hawaiian islands, reefs and atolls, stretching from Kure
and Midway in the west to the "Big Island" of Hawaii in the east. The Big Island is still being formed by the
active volcanoes Mauna Loa and Kilauea. The island arc will grow as Loihi, a seamount southeast of the Big
Island, eventually punctures the ocean surface as Hawaii's youngest island.

Japan is another island arc. The Japanese archipelago consists of four large islands, from Hokkaido, in the far
north, through Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu in the far south. Japan also includes more than 3,000 smaller
islands. In several places in the Japanese archipelago, volcanoes are still active.

Volcanoes do not form all archipelagoes. Many archipelagoes are continental islands formed only after the last
ice age. As glaciers retreated, sea levels rose and low-lying valleys were flooded. Coastal mountain ranges
became archipelagoes just off the mainland.

The largest archipelago in the world was formed by glacial retreat. The Malay Archipelago, between the Pacific
and Indian Oceans, contains more than 25,000 islands in Southeast Asia. The thousands of islands of
Indonesia and Malaysia are a part of the Malay Archipelago. At least some of these islands—and the straits
that separate them—were part of mainland Asia during the last ice age.

Finland’s Archipelago Sea, part of the Baltic Sea, also emerged after the last ice age. There are more than
50,000 islands in the Archipelago Sea, although many of them do not measure half a hectare (one acre). Some
of the islands are close enough to be connected by bridges.

Islands of the archipelago sea were never coastal mountaintops, however. They were formed by post-glacial
rebound. In this process, land that was squashed by the weight of heavy glaciers during the Ice Age slowly
regains its shape, like a sponge. Because post-glacial rebound is still occurring, islands continue to rise from
the Archipelago Sea.

A country of eastern Asia consisting of the Philippine Islands, an archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean southeast of
China. Inhabited by Malays and various indigenous groups, the islands were the first land in Asia sighted by Magellan's
expedition in 1521 and were colonized by the Spanish after 1565. They came under US control in 1898 after the Spanish-
American War. A commonwealth was created in 1935 and full independence achieved in 1946. The islands were
occupied by Japan during much of World War II. Political turmoil led to the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos after 1965
and his exile in 1986 following the election of Corazón Aquino. Manila is the capital and Quezon City is the largest city.