List of Orkney islands

The Orkney archipelago is located 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) north of mainland Scotland and comprises over 70 islands and skerries, of which 20 are permanently inhabited.

The definition of an island used in this list is that it is 'land that is surrounded by seawater on a daily basis, but not necessarily at all stages of the tide, excluding human devices such as bridges and causeways'.

[3] The barriers were constructed by Italian prisoners-of-war as a means of preventing enemy submarine access to the vast natural harbour of Scapa Flow after the sinking of HMS Royal Oak by a German U-boat in 1939 with the loss of 883 lives.

The Italian prisoners constructed a small Roman Catholic chapel on Lamb Holm as a place of worship during their incarceration.

[5] The islands have good agricultural qualities and have been continuously inhabited for thousands of years,[6] as evidenced by the World Heritage Site of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.

[11] Lamb Holm is "included in the NRS statistical geography for inhabited islands but had no usual residents at the time of either the 2001 or 2011 censuses".