History Main / TurtleIsland

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf: Meet the Pegasus'': The floating island where Prince Pegasus and Princess Blue dance while the goats are chased by the wolves is revealed to be a large turtle with all sorts of plants and rocks on it.

Turtle Island is also a name for North America by some indigenous people, the TropeMaker. Not to be confused with [[WesternAnimation/TurtleIsland the 1995 animated series]].

** ''WesternAnimation/StrangeWorld'': [[spoiler: Once Searcher and Ethan reach the other side of the mountains, they discover that their homeland rests on the back of a gigantic, continent-sized turtle, and that the subterranean world they've been navigating is actually the inside of its body.]]

%%* ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'': There is one of these in ''Blue World''.

* ''VideoGame/TheWanderingVillage'' has a plateau on the back of a giant brachiosauroid creature called an Onbu with trees and berry bushes and mushrooms growing on it. And a village of refugees from the plague spreading around the world.

* ''WesternAnimation/StrangeWorld'': It's revealed at the end that [[spoiler:[[ThatsNoMoon the entire landmass upon which both Avalonia and Strange World are situated is actually a massive sea creature rather resembling a turtle]], as Searcher and Ethan find out when they make it to the other side of the mountains and find themselves gazing upon the turtle's giant eye]].

* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': The Lyngbakr is an imprisoned whale-like creature that, like in Norse myths, is so big that can be easily mistaken for an island before it emerges from the water. Kratos can fight enemies, find chests, and ultimately help to free the animal all on top of its back.

* ''Videogame/Pirate101'' has Maruzame castle. The game being set in a WorldInTheSky, it's a flying turtle, but it still only appears when summoned.

Mythical creatures of mystery: fish, whales, or turtles (there's a definite preference for turtles over any other animal, as their hard shells appear especially suited to holding up or forming chunks of landscape) big enough to be mistaken for islands or even continents have shown up in {{Mythology}} and {{Legend}}s for thousands of years. If it's a turtle, the proper term is ''Aspidochelone''. They are often portrayed as being ''so'' large and ancient that soil and plantlife have grown on its back, sometimes ancient species containing something so rare that the hero (or villain) must marvel at it or try to obtain it. Often the hero gets only a brief opportunity to marvel at its existence, before it decides to set out and dive deep underwater, leaving the protagonist high and dry (or wet and drowning if he doesn't manage to get off in time). [[FridgeLogic How the fauna and flora on its back can survive and grow when it frequently dives underwater is rarely addressed]] -- although, in some cases, the beast never dives, instead spending its time cruising at the ocean surface.

* Creator/{{Disney}}:

* ''Animation/{{Ainbo}}'': the gigantic tortoise spirit Motelo Mama carries a whole forest on her shell.
* [[Creator/DreamWorksAnimation DreamWorks Pictures]]' ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' has this, but instead it's a giant fish. The flora are actually fleshy growths that retract when it begins moving (or are cut) and it has a giant angler-like lure that can be mistaken for a tiny, fast-moving sun.
* ''WesternAnimation/GuillermoDelTorosPinocchio'': The Terrible Dogfish is a deep sea monster that periodically comes out of the abyss to bathe in some sunlight before going back down, thus when it sleeps while staying afloat, the part of the body that sticks out of the water looks like an island.

* In ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu'', what the main characters think is a mountain range is actually [[spoiler:a group of Torterra subjected to growth experiments, big enough to play this trope straight.]]

* In ''Literature/TheReader2016'', Reed and his crew encounter one on their voyage to the end of the world.

* Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium: ''The Adventures of Tom Bombadil'', there is a hobbit rhyme about "Fastitocalon", a giant turtle mistaken for an island. Tolkien got the name from an Anglo-Saxon verse bestiary; it was a distortion of the Greek "aspidochelone" ("Shield-Turtle").

* Wayne Barlowe's ''Literature/{{Expedition}}'' has Grovebacks, which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as their name implies]], host groves of trees on their backs while dormant.

* Myth/HinduMythology has it that the world is carried on the backs of four elephants which in turn are carried on the back of a turtle named Akupara. This was likely the inspiration for [[Literature/{{Discworld}} Great A'Tuin]] and [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Torterra]].
** Some say that the tortoise is likewise balanced on a cobra.

* Several legendary creatures from medieval bestiaries fill this role. These are the Jasconius, Aspidochelone, and Zaratan. Depending on the story, the being is either portrayed as a turtle, a fish, or even a crab. Often in modern retellings, the creatures are all a single type of island beast with multiple names.

* In ''VideoGame/KingsBounty: The Legend'', a scientist (the would-be king of the humans who gave up his throne ForScience, no less) hypothesizes that the world rests on the back of a giant turtle. He also remarks on how ludicrous an opposing hypothesis that says [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything the world is a giant sphere orbiting a sun in a large void.]] [[spoiler: He's right.]]

* In ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'', the party hears tales about a moving island, which turns out to be a [[TurtleIsland giant turtle]].

** ''VideoGame/MegamiTenseiII'': Zaratan is a dungeon home to the [[PlotCoupon Saturn Pillar]]. The dungeon isn't atop Zaratan, it's [[WombLevel inside]] - the hero is swallowed up by the turtle when crossing the sea.

** In ''VideoGame/SonicAndTheSecretRings'', Levitated Ruin is set entirely in an [[GiantFlyer aerial version of this trope]]. The stage is a flock of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology) Rukhs]] in flight (though reimagined as manta rays), each carrying a roughly block-sized chunk of civilization on its back. Sonic travels from one Rukh to another via flying gargoyles who still inhabit the ruins.

A SubTrope of ThatsNoMoon. See also KrakenAndLeviathan for other gargantuan sea creatures, with which this trope often overlaps. An OceanOfAdventure will likely host many such creatures.

* In ''Anime/ArabianNightsAdventuresOfSinbad'', the main character encounters an island on the back of a whale.

* In ''Animation/GuardianFairyMichel'', Sitel is a fairy who happens to be one of these. And he can fly.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', Naruto [[spoiler: and Killer Bee]] hide and train on an island turtle (which has long since been guarded by the Cloud Village), which is a very good place to hide because they can get it to move if they need to. And apparently it's not a summon, unlike the usual giant beasts seen. Gai's personal summon is shocked by the size of one of the turtles who promptly informs him it's only a hatchling.

* In ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'', one of the Gourmet World's residents is a tortoise that carries an entire fortress city is on its back.
* In ''Anime/YuGiOhCapsuleMonsters'', the island the heroes first board without realizing is the back of an island turtle.

* The music video for the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0 From Finner]] by the Icelandic band [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/OfMonstersAndMen Of Monsters and Men]] depicts a whale-like creature swimming with a city built on it’s back.

* ''WesternAnimation/GuillermoDelTorosPinocchio'': When the Terrible Dogfish sleeps while staying afloat, its back that sticks out of the water looks like an island.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'': In ''WesternAnimation/TheDucktators'', the Hirohito duck mistakes a turtle for an island and places a Japanese mandate sign on its back. Said turtle is unamused and [[chases after him with the sign RoaringRampageOfRevenge]].

Mythical creatures of mystery: fish, whales, or turtles (there's a definite preference for turtles over any other animal) big enough to be mistaken for islands or even continents have shown up in {{Mythology}} and {{Legend}}s for thousands of years. If it's a turtle, the proper term is ''Aspidochelone''. They are often portrayed as being ''so'' large and ancient that soil and plantlife have grown on its back, sometimes ancient species containing something so rare that the hero (or villain) must marvel at it or try to obtain it. Often the hero gets only a brief opportunity to marvel at its existence, before it decides to set out and dive deep underwater, leaving the protagonist high and dry (or wet and drowning if he doesn't manage to get off in time). [[FridgeLogic How the fauna and flora on its back can survive and grow when it frequently dives underwater is rarely addressed]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation''

If Earth is one of these, there's a [[GravityIsAHarshMistress good chance]] it's TurtlesAllTheWayDown. If it's a ''dead'' turtle, it's a GiantCorpseWorld.

** ''WesternAnimation/StrangeWorld'': [[spoiler: Once Searcher and Ethan reach the other side of the mountains, they discover that the their homeland rests on the back of a gigantic, continent-sized turtle, and that the subterranean world they've been navigating is actually the inside of its body.]]

** In ''WesternAnimation/AladdinAndTheKingOfThieves'', the MacGuffin is on one of these, called "The Vanishing Isle".
** In ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', Te Fiti the goddess of Creation is a woman big enough to be an island when she lies down.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDucktators'': The Japanese duck mistakes a turtle for an island and places a Japanese mandate sign on its back. The turtle then goes out on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge.

** The Turtwig evolutionary family (Torterra especially) is based on the world-on-a-turtle mythology. Turtwig itself is just a large turtle with a leafy twig growing on its head, Grotle is a man-sized with two bushes growing on its back, and Torterra has a tree and a pair of small mountains on its back, and, while not island-sized, is large enough to be occasionally mistaken for a hill.

** In the ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', we see that in the ancient past there were a number of Lion Turtles, each with a city of humans on their back that they protected from the dangerous spirits roaming the world. Whenever humans left the city, the lion-turtle would use energybending to give them one of the four types of elemental bending to defend themselves, and then they would return it when they came back to the city. The street-urchin Wan was the first to steal fire from a lion-turtle simply by not returning it when he was supposed to. When he was exiled for bringing fire into the city, the lion-turtle allowed him to keep it so he could protect himself in the wilds. Over time, he traveled to other Lion Turtles and collected the other three elements from other Lion Turtles, and with a fusion with his spirit companion Raava, became [[spoiler: the first Avatar]].

Mythical creatures of mystery: fish, whales, or turtles (there's a definite preference for [[TurtlePower turtles]] over any other animal) big enough to be mistaken for islands or even continents have shown up in {{Mythology}} and {{Legend}}s for thousands of years. If it's a turtle, the proper term is ''Aspidochelone''. They are often portrayed as being ''so'' large and ancient that soil and plantlife have grown on its back, sometimes ancient species containing something so rare that the hero (or villain) must marvel at it or try to obtain it. Often the hero gets only a brief opportunity to marvel at its existence, before it decides to set out and dive deep underwater, leaving the protagonist high and dry (or wet and drowning if he doesn't manage to get off in time). [[FridgeLogic How the fauna and flora on its back can survive and grow when it frequently dives underwater is rarely addressed]].

* ''The Wandering Village'' has a plateau on the back of a giant brachiosauroid creature called an Onbu with trees and berry bushes and mushrooms growing on it. And a village of refugees from the plague spreading around the world.

* The music video for the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0 From Finner]] by the Icelandic band ‘’Of Monsters and Men’’ depicts a whale-like creature swimming with a city built on it’s back.

* The music video for the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0 From Finner]] by the Icelandic band [[OfMonstersandMen]] depicts a whale-like creature swimming with a city built on it’s back.

* The music video for the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gr6HBMDu0 From Finner]] by the Icelandic band [[Of Monsters and Men]] depicts a whale-like creature swimming with a city built on it’s back.