Figments of the imagination
12 islands home to mad scientists, scary pirates, and fantastic beasts!
Published on January 28, 2025
Image: Jad Limcaco
Whether idyllic or dangerous, mapped or mysterious, fictional islands make us want to get on a boat and become castaways. Cinema, television, and literature have allowed us to discover countless exotic lands that, despite being invented, are still fascinating. From Atlantis to Neverland, discover 12 fictional islands that, although they never existed, have earned a well-deserved place on the maps of world culture.
Atlantis
Image: ArtSpark
The legendary island of Atlantis is arguably the inspiration for many of the other islands listed in this article. It first appeared in Plato’s writings and was described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world. Since then, Atlantis has become an allegory for lost civilizations and has been depicted in literature, films, and television shows many times.
Although nowadays everyone agrees on the story's fictional nature, there is still a debate on whether a real place influenced Plato. The search for it has attracted the attention of fictional heroes, but many real-life archaeologists and explorers have also devoted much time and effort to the quest.
Treasure Island
Image: Nadjib BR
A tale of pirates and treasures buried in the sand, Robert Louis Stevenson's novel laid the groundwork for the Caribbean island archetype —beautiful, exotic, and deeply wild— that other writers and screenwriters would later replicate for decades.
In addition to the numerous film and television adaptations, the characters, setting, and events of this novel have greatly influenced modern imagery of pirate fiction, including schooners, treasure maps marked with an "x," and one-legged sailors with parrots on their shoulders.
Isla Nublar & Isla Sorna
Image: Dave Harwood
Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna are two islands supposedly located west of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean that serve as the main setting in the novels and film adaptations of Jurassic Park. However, for the film version, Steven Spielberg used the Hawaiian island of Kauai as a stand-in for the fictional islands.
On Isla Nublar lies the zoo that houses the genetically engineered dinosaurs created by John Hammond and the InGen Corporation. On Sorna, on the other hand, the dinosaurs are on the loose. Fun fact: Isla Nublar is perhaps the only island people can actually visit —so to speak— since there’s a replica at Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.
Ithaca
Image: Michael
Odysseus visits countless islands during his great journey back home: the island of the nymph Calypso and the beautiful sorceress Circe, the island of the Lotophages, the island of the Cyclops, and the island of the gigantic Lestrygonians, among many others. However, the one that stands out the most in the work of the Greek poet Homer is Ithaca, home to his beloved Penelope and his son Telemachus.
Although there is an island of the same name in Greece, Homer's Ithaca is a figment of his imagination. The author describes it as a rocky island, unsuitable for horse breeding but rich in wheat, vineyards, and pastures.
Skull Island
Image: Hanson Lu
Skull Island is a fictional island lost in the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Sumatra. In the center of the island stands a huge rock that resembles the shape of a human skull, from which it gets its name.
Skull Island is the home of King Kong, several other prehistoric species of creatures, and a primitive human society. It's the main setting of three major films and a pseudo-documentary about the island's animal life.
Utopia
Image: JCK5D
This idyllic island lost in the middle of the ocean appears in the works of Thomas More. Utopia is an example of the perfect state where its inhabitants enjoy physical and moral well-being. Utopia literally translates as "no place", coming from the Greek οὐ ("not") and τόπος ("place").
Inspired by the fantastic narratives of the New World, More imagined an island created by the people, a crescent-shaped belt of land, housing 54 city-states all of equal size where religious freedom is celebrated and private property is condemned.
The island
Image: Olga Subach
"The Island" is the major setting of the popular six-season-long television show Lost. This particular fictional island is not only a remote and mysterious place, it also serves as a character.
The Island has mysterious powers that can go beyond its geographic location. It is difficult to find and can apparently "move" through an unknown process. This place is so incredible that it features time travel, slave ships, supernatural monsters, large deadly animals, hidden treasures, scary scientists, supervillains, references to antiquity, and more. In short, a combination of various aspects of the other islands on this list rolled into one.
Carnivorous Island
Image: Hoodh Ahmed
Deserted islands are often a metaphor for human isolation. This thesis is more than proven in Life of Pi, a best seller and famous film about a boy who must survive a journey back to civilization accompanied by a Bengal tiger.
The island in Life of Pi is hauntingly beautiful at first glance, with jungles, meerkats, food, and drink. However, it soon reveals itself to be carnivorous, feeding on its own inhabitants and reminding Pi that excessive comfort can also be dangerous.
Lincoln Island
Image: Snapwire
The book The Mysterious Island was a sequel to Jules Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways. In this story, five men, Northern prisoners during the American Civil War, find a way to escape thanks to a hot air balloon. After several days suspended in the air due to a hurricane, they finally land on an island they name Lincoln, in honor of Abraham Lincoln.
While on the island, thanks to the protagonist's knowledge in the fields of physics, agriculture, and chemistry the group are able to sustain themselves. When they find a message in a bottle a whole host of adventures ensue.
Neverland
Image: Greg Rakozy
Neverland is a fictional island described in J. M. Barrie's fantasy play and novel Peter Pan. Remote and exotic, on this island children don’t grow up and live without rules or responsibilities, spending most of their time having fun and living adventures.
Neverland is home to the Lost Boys, fairies, fearsome pirates, Indians, mermaids, and other fantastic creatures that inhabit the jungles and deep waters. According to the legend, if you want to reach Neverland, you must fly to the top of the sky and turn to the second star on the right, flying until sunrise.
The island of Doctor Moreau
Image: Tom Winckels
While some islands offer sun, beaches, and a warm climate, not many can boast a community of wild human-beasts created by a mad scientist. The island of Doctor Moreau, or Noble Isle, as described in the original book by H.G. Wells, is an isolated piece of land populated by animal-human hybrids trying to find a balance between their social principles and their animal nature.
Multiple film adaptations of this story, and the whole notion of animal experimentation by a mad scientist, serve as a definite precursor to Jurassic Park, and probably a few of the storylines in Lost.
Fantasy Island
Image: Nenad Radojčić
Mr. Roarke, an enigmatic host at a luxury resort on a mysterious island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean receives people who arrive by seaplane, upon payment of US$50,000, to make their most extravagant dreams and fantasies come true.
Although not fully described in the television series aired from 1977 to 1984, on this island some fantasies have to do with the real world and others have mythological elements. Whatever the case, there is always some mystery, illusion, and wizardry involved in the plots.
