Isla de Muerta is an island featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. It is a mysterious isle where the pirate crew of the legendary sailing ship Black Pearl hide their looted treasure. It is filled with the cursed Aztec treasure that the pirates returned. According to Captain Jack Sparrow, Isla de Muerta ("Island of Dead Woman", literally translated from Spanish) is an island that cannot be found, except by those who already know where it is hidden. To locate it, Captain Sparrow uses his unique compass — rather than pointing north, it points to what its holder wants most. What Sparrow wants is his ship, the Black Pearl, anchored at the island and now captained by his mutinous first mate, Captain Hector Barbossa. Mysteriously shrouded in a everlasting fog, the isle is surrounded by a graveyard of sunken ships; its waters swarm with hammerhead sharks and shoaling fish.

According to pirate lore, Isla de Muerta was an island marked on no map, and could only be found by those who already knew where it was. The island was constantly surrounded by a thick fog and a graveyard of wrecked ships. The island remained largely unexplored, save for the cavern used by Barbossa's men to store their plundered loot. From the air, the island resembles a human skull. It appears to be largely unexplored, save for interconnecting caves where Barbossa's crew hoard their looted treasure. Here is where the dreaded Chest of Cortez containing the cursed Aztec gold lies hidden. There seems to be little that is interesting on the island, apart from the caves and the hoarded treasure the Black Pearl crew has acquired during their many years of searching for the last cursed coin and the one remaining blood sacrifice.

In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, it's learned that the island was reclaimed by the sea, taking with it both the cursed Aztec treasure and the uncursed mountains of swag that Barbossa's crew had hoarded while they were cursed. It was this swag that Jack Sparrow had agreed to pay his new crew with, but had to change his plans when it sank with the island. Barbossa himself was only retrieved due to the intervention of Tia Dalma, who did so and also restored him to life before the events of Dead Man's Chest. Some time later, the entire island, and all the treasure it contained, was swallowed up by the ocean, effectively vanishing from the face of the earth.

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Pirates of the Caribbean Wiki: Isla de Muerta

Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend, famous for its beautiful apples. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae ("The History of the Kings of Britain") as the place where King Arthur's sword Caliburn (Excalibur) was forged and later where Arthur is taken to recover from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann. As an "Isle of the Blessed" Avalon has parallels elsewhere in Indo-European mythology, in particular the Irish Tír na nÓg and the Greek Hesperides, also noted for its apples. Avalon was associated from an early date with immortal beings such as Morgan le Fay.

According to Geoffrey in the "Historia" and much subsequent literature which he inspired, Avalon is the place where King Arthur is taken after fighting Mordred at the Battle of Camlann to recover from his wounds. Welsh, Cornish and Breton tradition claimed that Arthur had never really died, but would inexorably return to lead his people against their enemies. The Historia also states that Avalon is where his sword Caliburn (Excalibur) was forged. Geoffrey dealt with Avalon in more detail in Vita Merlini, in which he describes for the first time in Arthurian legend the enchantress Morgan le Fay as the chief of nine sisters who live on Avalon. Geoffrey's description of the island indicates a sea voyage was needed to get there. It is said to be an island of rich fields which "have no need of the ploughs of the farmers and all cultivation is lacking except what nature provides. Of its own accord it produces grain and grapes, and apple trees grow in its woods from the close-clipped grass. The ground of its own accord produces everything instead of merely grass, and people live there a hundred years or more. There nine sisters rule by a pleasing set of laws those who come to them from our country."

In Welsh mythology it is also the kingdom of the dead, an earthly paradise in the western seas, and finally, in the Arthurian romances, the abode of heroes to which King Arthur was conveyed after his last battle. In Welsh the name is Ynys yr Afallon, usually interpreted "Isle of Apples," but possibly connected with the Celtic tradition of a king over the dead named Avalloc (in Welsh Afallach). Perhaps owing to a confusion between Glasberg or Ynysvitrin and the Anglo-Saxon Glaestinga-burh, Glastonbury, the name "Isle of Avalon" was given to the low ridge in central Somersetshire which culminates in Glastonbury Tor, while Glastonbury itself came to be called Avalon. Attempts have also been made to identify Avalon with other places in England and Wales.

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Craggy Island was the primary setting for the UK Channel 4 sitcom Father Ted. A bleak, desolate community with no redeeming features whatsoever and where "nothing ever happens," it was populated by various lunatics, a small Chinese community and one Maori. The weather is often harsh and just about every house and business is shoddily built. As testament to the island's enduring unpopularity, the Irish state has given the British government permission to use the island's coast for dumping nuclear waste. The island isn't mentioned on any map and is frequently used by sailors as a navigational device (because, in the words of Father Ted Crilly, the general consensus is that, if you're heading away from the island, you're heading in the right direction).

Despite there rarely being any news of note, the island has its own broadsheet, called The Craggy Island Examiner. Because they never have anything worth writing about, the staff usually blow up any small event or piece of gossip into a major scandal, such as when a peeping tom's whistle was stolen. The 'story' helped make way for a full colour pull out on whistles as a way of exploiting the bored locals' excitement (one resident even remarked that Craggy Island was becoming like Boyz n the Hood). However, Ted was once seen reading an edition with the alarming headline: "Crazed Murderer Still on the Loose"; it was implied in the episode that this person may be Tom, an insane man who persistently observes the coast wearing his "I Shot J.R." t-shirt, usually while sporting a gun.

The only remotely modern places on the island are an internet cafe, a cinema, a lighthouse, an isolation tank, an aviary and a golf course, although the latter consists only of a small strip of concrete and a windmill. The island has a long-running feud with its almost identical counterpart, Rugged Island, which is ministered to by Ted's arch nemesis, Father Dick Byrne. Judging by their licence plates, all the cars on Craggy island were registered in Laois, Ireland's only double landlocked county. Points of interest include the Holy Stone of Clonrichert; The Field (not actually a field but it has fewer rocks in it than most other places on the island); the Craggy Island Crazy Golf Course; The Picnic Spot (even bleaker than other parts on the island); a pub called Vaughans; a pub called O'Leary's, which is also the name of a small shop; and the Magic Road.

The real Craggy Island seen from helicopter shots is the Galway Bay island of Inisheer. The actual parochial house used in the series is on the mainland in County Clare, near Lisdoonvarna. Vaughan's pub, where Ted is confronted by a crowd of angry Chinese in "Are You Right There, Father Ted?", is also located in Kilfenora.

Wikipedia entry on Craggy Island

Skull Island is a fictional island first appearing in the 1933 film King Kong and later appearing in its sequels and in the two remakes. It is the home of the eponymous King Kong and several other species of creatures, mostly prehistoric and in some cases species that should have been extinct long before the rise of mammalian creatures such as gorillas, along with a primitive society of humans. In the 1962 film King Kong vs. Godzilla and the 1967 film King Kong Escapes, the equivalents of Skull Island are called Farou Island and Mondo Island, respectively. Kong plays a similar role on these islands as the godlike being of the land, a role he plays in all versions of the King Kong story. Skull Island's origins are unknown, however Kong appears to be the only giant gorilla known to exist on the island. However, the 2005 remake shows other skeletons of Kong-sized gorillas, indicating that there was once a group of such creatures of an unknown number living on the island.

In the original 1933 film, the classic starring Fay Wray, Skull Island is never referred to by name on film; only Skull Mountain is named, while in the sequel Son of Kong, its simply referred to as "Kong's Island". In the novelization of King Kong (1933) by Delos Lovelace, it's called Skull Mountain Island. But RKO referred to it as Skull Island in their publicity materials. Though not called by name in the 1976 film starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange (it is simply referred to as the Beach of the Skull by Jack Prescott), and lacking the distinctive Skull outcropping, the island is referenced as Skull Island within the film's soundtrack. The 2005 film directed by Peter Jackson, starring Adrien Brody, Jack Black and Naomi Watts, the island is shaped like a large hand with long, skeletal fingers. It is surrounded by carved stone reefs, made to resemble faces crying out in anger and pain, and is criss-crossed by an enormous stone wall and covered with jungle-swallowed ruins that are countless generations old, which are all that remain of an unknown, ancient human civilization that somehow once existed and thrived on Skull Island.

Skull Island has also been referred to in countless other sources, including homages in the video games "The Curse of Monkey Island" and "Donkey Kong"; and in such media as "The Simpsons" (which visits Ape Island in one of the "Treehouse of Horror" segments), "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" and even in "Dungeons and Dragons".

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Lincoln Island is the name given to the island oasis discovered by the castaways of French novelist Jules Verne's classic novel, The Mysterious Island. The five American survivors, who escape from being prisoners of war by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, flee in a hot air balloon and later crash land on the island, which they name after President Abraham Lincoln. After facing down pirates, malaria and the elements, the survivors discover the truth about the island: it's the home harbor of the Nautilus and the hideout of Captain Nemo!

The novel is a sequel to Verne's famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and In Search of the Castaways, though thematically it is vastly different from those books. In September 1875 Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle published the first British edition of The Mysterious Island in three volumes entitled "Dropped from the Clouds," "The Abandoned," and "The Secret of the Island." The first American edition was published in November of the same year. It has been translated many times thereafter, including as a column in Philadelphia's Evening Telegraph, and is considered a modern classic.

The book has been adapted into other media many times, mostly notably as the 1929 film "The Mysterious Island," which was filmed in color but now only exists in black and white, and which was filmed as a silent movie, but talking sequences were filmed later for the beginning and several sequences during the film; as the 1961 film of the same name directed by Cy Endfield, with Herbert Lom starring as Nemo and featuring special effects from legendary effects producer Ray Harryhausen; as a short-lived Canadian TV series from 1995; and a TV movie directed by Russell Mulcahy in 2005 starring Patrick Stewart as Nemo and Kyle MacLachlan as Cyrus. "The Mysterious Island" along with its predecessor novels also serve as inspiration for such works as the Tom Hanks film "Cast Away," the computer game Myst and the themed land at Tokyo DisneySea. J.J. Abrams, creator of the television series Lost, credits "The Mysterious Island" as the chief inspiration for the show, and Alan Moore, writer of the graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, uses it as inspiration for the reintroduction of Nemo as part of the League.

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Themyscira is the fictional island nation in the DC Comics universe that is the place of origin of Wonder Woman and her sister Amazons. Also known as Paradise Island since Wonder Woman and the island's first appearance in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941), it was renamed "Themyscira" with the character's February 1987 relaunch in Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #1. The island is named after the mythological city of Themiscyra, the capital of the Amazon tribe in Greek mythology. Themyscira is also the name of the city on the island.

When Wonder Woman's homeland is first introduced in 1941, it is a secret and hidden island inhabited by the Amazons of myth. The Amazons had grown tired of the evil ways of mankind in ancient Greece and had separated themselves to this island where they could practice a peaceful way of life and cultivate their minds. With the island blessed by the Olympian Gods, no man is allowed to physically set foot on it. When United States Army intelligence officer Steve Trevor's plane crashes there during World War II, he is nursed back to health by Princess Diana, daughter of the island's Queen Hippolyta. Recuperating on the nearby Island of Healing, the rule of no man being able to step foot on Paradise Island remained in effect. Diana competes against other Amazons to become Wonder Woman, the representative from Paradise Island who will accompany Steve back to "Man's World" and aid in the fight against the Axis powers. It is established that all Amazons are adept at a discipline called "bullets and bracelets" in which they are able to deflect bullets fired at them using the metal cuffs on their wrists.

This basic back-story remains intact throughout the Golden Age and Silver Age of Comic Books, until the 1985-1986 Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline. Upon the conclusion of this limited series, most characters in the DC Comics universe underwent some revamp or retcon in their storyline history, and Wonder Woman was one of several characters whose entire continuity was rebooted. The 1987 relaunch of Wonder Woman establishes that the Amazons are the reincarnated souls of women slain throughout pre-history by men. Shaped from clay over 3,000 years previous and given new lives by five Olympian goddesses, the Amazons are granted immortality, great physical strength, highly acute senses, beauty, wisdom, and love for one another. They are tasked to teach the merits of virtue, love, and equality to the men of “Patriarch’s World." They found the city-state of Themyscira in ancient Turkey. Renaming the island paradise Themyscira after their fallen capitol, the Amazons began their new lives, erecting buildings and monuments and perfecting their skills as artisans and warriors. Themyscira is presently located in the Bermuda Triangle, but possesses the magical ability to teleport to any location or time period its inhabitants desire.

Wikipedia Entry on Themyscira
DC Comics Wiki on Themyscira