This site guides four Atlantic islands in depth. They belong to a wider family: the islands of the subtropical belt, scattered through every ocean. Here is the whole map.
Subtropical islands sit roughly between the tropics and the temperate zones — about 23.5° to 35° of latitude, north and south. The ocean does the fine-tuning: it softens winters, caps summer heat, and feeds the cloud, rain and trade winds that keep these islands green.
Tropical islands hug the equator: hot all year, with wet and dry seasons. Subtropical islands have real seasons — mild winters, warm summers, and weather that can turn.
Temperate islands get proper cold. Subtropical islands rarely freeze at sea level; palms and other warmth-loving plants survive outdoors all year.
They are the winter-sun compromise: warm enough to swim and hike in shirtsleeves when home is grey, varied enough to fill more than a beach week.
Each track runs from 42° south to 42° north. The golden bands mark the subtropical latitudes; each dot is an island group named below. Schematic — not to geographic scale.
Our four guides sit in the Atlantic. The Pacific holds the same climate family on the far side of the world — including the two islands Australia counts as its official “Pacific Subtropical Islands.”
The ocean this site covers in depth.
The same latitudes, mirrored around the globe.
Honesty corner: most famous Indian Ocean islands sit inside the tropics.
Wholly subtropical countries are rare; the belt usually crosses part of a country — southern Japan, coastal eastern Australia, northern Argentina, parts of South Africa, Mexico and the southern United States — and it claims whole island territories, like Madeira, the Canaries and the Azores.
Funchal (Madeira), Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas (Gran Canaria), Ponta Delgada (Azores), Hamilton (Bermuda), Naha (Okinawa) and Brisbane (Australia) all sit in or beside the belt.
Mild winters, warm to hot summers, and rain that usually arrives in the cooler months or in passing showers — softened near the ocean, sharper inland and higher up.
Pack layers, not just swimwear. Subtropical islands reward walkers and explorers as much as beach days, and a single trip can mix coast, forest and high volcanic country.