The world’s largest artificial floating island has finished its first week as a major new tourism attraction in Seoul, South Korea.

Seoul‘s Han River will eventually be home to a floating archipelago of three man-made “islets”, but the first island, Viva, opened to the public last week.

At 3,271 square meters, it is the second-largest of the three and is home to a three-storey structure housing a 700-seat convention hall and several other attractions such as restaurants and video games.

The island nation of the Maldives is poised to build a floating golf course and convention centre in what could be the first of a series of futuristic off-shore developments designed to confront the threat of global warming.

The government has asked a Dutch firm to investigate the feasibility of developing a number of facilities that would be located among the 26 main atolls.

The artificial floating islands will incorporate technologies such as water cooling, water desalination, and the use of floating solar blanket fields.

A cluster of 300 artificial islands off Dubai‘s coast in the shape of a global map is stable, its developer Nakheel insists, despite a court claim alleging that “The World” was neglected and eroding away.

“There is no issue with the stability of The World islands that are approximately 70 percent sold and handed over,” a Nakheel spokesman said.

“The island purchasers (have) the responsibility to proceed with their developments in due course,” he added.

An investor in the World project (Dubai) has listed an island on sale defying the “no flipping” diktat by UAE Defense Minister, Nakheel.

The 20,000 sqm island is up for sale for Dh42 million ($11million), according to Streamline Real Estate Brokers, the agency brokering the deal.

When contacted about the ‘re-sale’, a Nakheel spokesperson said: “Flipping is not allowed for islands on The World.”

It’s not often a whole island comes up for sale in the Bahamas, let alone one with substantial cliffs, deep-water moorings and some of the best beaches in the Caribbean.

Great Whale Cay, 30 minutes by boat from Nassau, is for sale for $80 million and has all the possibilities to become an exclusive retreat for the right buyer.

There are historic buildings (Great house, lighthouse, and church) on this 850-acre L-shaped island, rare flora and fauna and watersports and diving.

China’s southern Hainan island is playing up its tropical climate in a major plan to position itself as a “golf island”, the capital of the sport in China.

Golf courses have sprouted like mushrooms across the country as the sport catches on, but no place has hitched its wagon to the sport’s boom quite like Hainan, which resembles an oval golf green on a map of the South China Sea.

A decade ago, there were no golf courses here; today there are more than 20 and long-term goals include an eventual 100 courses.