Magdalen Islands
archipelago of Quebec, Canada
The Magdalen Islands (French: Îles de la Madeleine, pronounced [il də la madlɛn]) are a Canadian archipelago in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Since 2005, the 12-island archipelago is divided into two municipalities: the majority-francophone Municipality of Îles-de-la-Madeleine and the majority-anglophone Municipality of Grosse-Île, in the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region, Quebec.
Geography
Approximately 126 kilometres (78 mi) in combined area, they form a string of islands and beaches in the southeastern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The rocks that make up the island massifs are of three kinds: horizontal and soft sandstones, of a blood-red color, which give the archipelago a distinctive character. These red sandstones are juxtaposed with harder, grey sandstones, which also form cliffs in some places. Both sandstones were formed in the Permian period when the island was a desert, and in 2026 were found to preserve fossils of plants and tracks and burrows of burrowing animals.
Finally, volcanic actions created rounded, symmetrical domes like breasts, which were given the name of Demoiselles (or "young ladies"), though this is disputed. Where volcanic effusions have come into contact with sandstones, large masses of gypsum are found.
The public source identifies “Magdalen Islands” as archipelago of Quebec, Canada. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Magdalen, Islands and archipelago.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1348763. VIAF identifies the subject as 244614792. Authority coordinates are 47.448, -61.752. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magdalen Islands” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.