-> 2010 -> How big is Islay?

Diciadain, 25/Aug/2010

How big is Islay?

Islay Fun in stencil

Yes, how big is Islay actually? Simple question, isn't it? The easy answer is just looking up some stats, they will tell you Islay is 61,956 hectares or 239 square miles or 620 square kilometres in area. Or that Islay is approx 25 miles long north-south and approx 20 miles wide east-west (that's 40 km x 32 km). But that's rather boring and not necessarily that easy to put into perspective. So let's try something different:

A very common comparison used in the UK is an area the size of Wales. Using the 239 miles² mentioned above it turns out Islay is 0.029 times the size of Wales. Another common measure is the length of a Football field, using a Champions League size field (105 metres long) Islay would be approx 381 football fields long and 305 football fields wide

But there's more (and also the real inspiration for this entry):

Earlier today I came across an entry Flächenvergleiche mit BBC Dimensions on the German Spreeblick blog, which linked to the new BBC Dimensions site:


Of course I couldn't resist and had to try a few things with Islay. One example includes If the Mars Spirit Rover had set off from Bowmore, Islay, it would have almost crossed Loch Indaal:

Screenshot of a Google map with a graph added

Other interesting comparisons I found include:

Those are the ones I came up with, if you find any other interesting ones please leave them in the comments!

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