Throughout history, the fear of contagious disease led societies to isolate the sick on remote outposts known as quarantine islands. These isolated spots, often called lazarettos, were the front‑line defense against epidemics, leprosy, and even unwanted immigrants.
Why Quarantine Islands Matter
Beyond their grim purpose, quarantine islands reveal how cultures balanced compassion with containment, turning barren rocks into eerie museums of human resilience.
1 Lazzaretto Vecchio
Built in A.D. 1423 on a modest six‑acre island within the Venetian Lagoon, Lazzaretto Vecchio was the world’s first purpose‑built lazaretto. It served a double duty as a leper colony and a plague quarantine station. Operating until the seventeenth century, the island saw staggering mortality rates—up to five hundred deaths per day during peak plague years. In 2004, workers uncovered a mass grave containing more than 1,500 bubonic plague victims, and historians believe thousands more remain buried beneath the soil.
2 Dubrovnik Lazaret
Constructed in 1627 just outside the fortified walls of Dubrovnik, this lazaret was not an island but a quarantine building that guarded the bustling Adriatic port. During the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, Dubrovnik was a key stop for Ottoman traders heading west. The lazaret, praised for its civilized design, remained functional until the nineteenth century and today stands restored as a heritage site within one of Europe’s best‑preserved walled cities.
3 Kamau Taurua (Quarantine Island)
Located in Otago Harbour near Dunedin, New Zealand, the 37‑acre Kamau Taurua—originally dubbed “Quarantine Island”—first received the ship Victory in 1863, which carried a smallpox outbreak. The island operated as a quarantine station until 1924, handling more than forty vessels with infectious passengers. After World War I, veterans suffering from venereal disease were housed there. Today, only one original quarantine building survives, protected by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, and the island even boasts its own lyrical tribute.
4 Hospital Island
Off the coast of Maine in Passamaquoddy Bay, this three‑acre speck was renamed “Hospital Island” in 1832 and used to isolate cholera‑suspected passengers. A dedicated lazaret was erected, and fresh water had to be shipped in. The island’s busiest period coincided with the Great Irish Potato Famine, when countless immigrants perished en route to North America. In 1869, the “Great Saxby Gale” ripped away soil and exposed graves, leaving skeletal remains to surface on the shoreline—a haunting reminder of its grim past.
5 Quail Island
Situated in Lyttelton Harbour near Christchurch, New Zealand, Quail Island (Maori name Otamahua) earned its moniker after a captain spotted quail there in 1842—birds that vanished from the island within thirty years. From the 1870s onward, the island functioned as a quarantine station for immigrants, a leper colony, and later a refuge for children with diphtheria. It also housed victims of the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic. Notably, the island served as the quarantine hub for animals used in famed Antarctic expeditions, including huskies, mules, and ponies.
6 Swinburne and Hoffman Islands
Just off Staten Island in New York Bay, these man‑made islands were erected after a series of cholera outbreaks ravaged New York City in the nineteenth century. Immigrants arriving at the Port of New York were sent to Swinburne and Hoffman for health checks; those cleared proceeded to Ellis Island. The islands also played a role during the 1910 cholera epidemic. Following World War I, improved sanitation rendered them obsolete, and today they remain off‑limits to the public.
7 Spinalonga
Off the coast of Crete, Spinalonga was carved out of the island during the Venetian occupation, transforming a peninsula into a fortified island—now known in Greek as Kalydon. It became one of Europe’s last leper colonies, operating from 1903 until 1957. The final resident, a priest, departed in 1962 after fulfilling Orthodox traditions of commemorating the dead for five years post‑burial.
8 Angel Island
As the largest island in San Francisco Bay, Angel Island processed over a million Asian immigrants. In 1891, a quarantine station opened at what was then “Hospital Cove” (now Ayala Cove). The facility employed steam‑generated disinfectant from the USS Omaha, bathed passengers in carbolic acid, and isolated them for fourteen days in barracks. Ships, such as the China, underwent rigorous decontamination using steam, sulfur dioxide, and even cyanide.
9 Kalaupapa
Perched on a sheer peninsula of Molokai, Hawaii, Kalaupapa became a leper colony in 1866 and remained active until 1969. At its height, roughly 1,200 men, women, and children lived under mandatory isolation. Although the disease was no longer infectious by the time the colony closed, many residents chose to stay, fearing stigma if they returned to mainland society.
10 Grosse Ile
During Ireland’s Great Potato Famine (1845‑1849), the Canadian government used Grosse Ile in the Gulf of St Lawrence as a quarantine hub for Irish immigrants from 1832 to 1848. Over 5,000 Irish bodies lie buried there, making it the largest Irish famine cemetery outside Ireland. A devastating typhus outbreak in 1847 claimed thousands of lives on the island and aboard incoming ships. Survivors who reached Montreal faced “fever sheds” to further contain the disease; among the emigrants was the future grandfather of Henry Ford.