What and where is TROPICAL ISLAND

Tropic Zone


The Tropics, seated in the equatorial regions of the world, are limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately 23°26' (23.4°) N latitude, and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23°26' (23.4°) S latitude. The Tropics are also referred to as the tropical zone and the torrid zone (see geographical zone).
A noontime scene from the Philippines on a day when the Sun is almost directly overhead.

The Tropics includes all the areas on the Earth where the sun reaches a point directly overhead at least once during the solar year. In the temperate zones, north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun never reaches this zenith and is never directly overhead, always passing south of it in the northern hemisphere and north of it in the southern hemisphere.

The word "tropics" comes from Greek tropos meaning "turn" or "direction", because the apparent position of the Sun oscillates between the two tropics with a period that defines the average length of a year.

Tropical islands

There are approximately 45,000 tropical islands on Earth.Almost 38,000 of them with a minimum size of 5 hectares (7,000 being in the Atlantic Ocean) are systematically described and illustrated with typical examples. Among coral tropic islands for example are Maldives, Tonga, Nauru, Polynesia. Granite islands include Seychelles and Tioman. The socio-economic diversity of these regions ranges from the Stone Age societies in the interior of Madagascar, Borneo or Papua New Guinea to the high-tech lifestyles of the city-islands of Singapore and Hong Kong. The international tourism is a significant factor in the local economy of Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Réunion or Hawaii.