The world's largest island named after an English county - not 1 person lives there

An island in Canada is the largest island in the world but yet it remains mostly uninhabited. Devon island is situated in Baffin Bay, Nunavut and it is one of the largest members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The island was named after Devon in England and it has no permanent residents due to its treacherous conditions. The windswept shores also hold a dark past of doomed expeditions and failed colonisation attempts.

The last attempt to establish a settlement on the island collapsed in 1951 and the island was abandoned except for occasional visits to maintain the graves of those buried on the land.

According to travel blogger Explanders, the island has a harsh climate making it nearly impossible for humans to live on it easily.

It says: "Hidden in Canada's faraway Arctic region, the island of Devon is probably one of the most inhospitable places on Earth, often defined as a polar desert.

"Roughly the size of New York State, Devon is the largest uninhabited island anywhere in the world, as well as the second-largest island in the archipelago of Queen Elizabeth.

"With little or no fauna and flora, the island's frozen wasteland bears an uncanny resemblance to Mars, making it a favorable environment for space research among scientists and the last frontier for the most intrepid travellers."

Devon Island is often remembered in association with the Lost Franklin Expedition of 1845.

A total of 129 men aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, set out to map the Northwest Passage for Great Britain and never returned.

Years later, search efforts uncovered traces of the men on Devon Island clothes, rope and hundreds of empty food tins - graves of some of those aboard the two ships were later found on the neighbouring Beechey Island.

Devon Island is the world's 27th largest island - for context, the next biggest is the main island of Tasmania, Australia.

The climate and setting is similar to Mars - and has been used by Nasa to research potential missions to the Red Planet, reports BBC.