on Crete or in Crete?

Question

Hi,
I'm not sure which preposition to use when we speak about islands.
Should I use in or on in the following sentences?

e.g. The weather in/on Crete was beautiful.
e.g. I spent my holidays in/on Crete.
e.g. People in/on Crete prefer to live in small houses.

Thanks.

Yizhivika · Accepted Answer

Good question! If you do a Google search, 'on Crete' throws up around 1.5 million pages, and 'in Crete" about 220,000 pages, so, in general, English-speakers evidently favour on.

I think a good rule of thumb is to use in for islands that also happen to be nation states (e.g. in Australia, in Iceland) and on for islands that are constituent parts of a nation state (which would include Crete in such a definition).

There will doubtless be exceptions to such a provisional rule, but it works pretty well for the island that I live on; people here would invariably say '"in Britain", but "on the Isle of Wight" and "on the Isle of Skye".

Malinka · Answer

yizhivika, thank you very much for your answer, it seems reasonable for me.

I thought that it's better to use ON CRETE, but I decided to google it first and the results were opposite to yours, i.e. only 368 000 for "on Crete", that's why I got confused and posted this question.

P.S. Do you have Russian friends? Your nickname is a name of berry as well as mine

A Cornish Pasty · Answer

That Google search result is very surprising, because I would be more likely to say "in Crete"!

I have a house in Crete.
I've always wanted to lie on a beach in Crete.
Have you ever been to a restaurant in Crete?

Yes, to me, "in Crete" sounds more natural.

Malinka · Answer

Thank you, A Cornish Pasty.

Evidently I should say:

In Crete but On the isle of Crete
In Cyprus but On the isle of Cyprus

Yizhivika · Answer

????????????, ???????! ????? ???????!

? ?????? ??????? ??-??????....but your English is so much better than my Russian (? ????? ??? ????? ????....), that I'm going to rapidly revert to English here....

In the first paragraph above, unfortunately, I mixed up my Google searches with regard to 'in Crete' and 'on Crete', and it's the former that has 1.5 million hits, and the latter 220 thousand.

That said, I still think the tentative rule of thumb that I proposed in the second paragraph above, is a reasonably good one, albeit with exceptions. With regard to Crete specifically, maybe it's because it's such a large island, that it attracts the preposition 'in' more often than it does 'on', and, in any event, I think the choice of preposition here would often be contextual.

For example, I think I'd always say, "On the island of Crete... " (and never, "In the island of Crete...").....

but so too would I almost certainly say "On a beach in Crete..." and not "On a beach on Crete... (the two 'ons' so closely together here lack style, and look and sound a bit clumsy in native English).

Incidentally, the examples of "the Isle of Wight", and "the Isle of Skye" I gave above, are not very good ones, in that "the Isle of" is part of a proper name. When speaking of an island generally, use the word 'island', rather than 'isle'; when 'isle' is not part of a proper name, it's too poetic to use in everyday speech.

Also, incidentally, what would you say in Russian: '? ?????' ??? '?? ?????' ?

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on Crete or in Crete?

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