archipelago

An archipelago is a group of islands that are close together and may or may not be connected by land.

When we talk about an archipelago, we usually think about a collection of islands that form a single geographic unit. This could be something like the Caribbean islands, the Hawaiian Islands, or even the British Isles. An archipelago is often used to describe a bunch of small islands that are part of a larger region or nation. For example, if someone asks you where you're from and you say an island in the Mediterranean Sea, they might ask if it's part of an archipelago like Italy or Greece.