There is also a Brother Island in El Nido, Palawan

El Nido, Palawan

El Nido is a first class municipality and managed resource protected area in the province of Palawan in the Philippines...

 in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

.

Brother Isle ( meaning broad beach island) is a small, uninhabited island in Shetland, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It lies between the islands of Yell and Shetland Mainland. It is 40 hectare (0.154440863437014 sq mi) in size.

Geography and geology

The island's rock is "undifferentiated moine

Moine

- Geography :* Des Moines, Iowa, formerly called Fort Des Moines .- Geology :* Moine Thrust Belt, a major geological feature in the north-west of Scotland....

 gneiss

Gneiss

Gneiss is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks.-Etymology:...

 and quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

."

History

It is sometimes assumed that the "Brother" in the name refers to Culdee

Culdee

Céli Dé or Culdees were originally members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities of Ireland, Scotland and England in the Middle Ages. The term is used of St. John the Apostle, of a missioner from abroad recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 806, and of Óengus...

s/papar

Papar

The Papar were, according to early Icelandic historical sources, a group of Irish or Scottish monks resident in parts of Iceland at the time of the arrival of the Norsemen...

who were frequent inhabitants of the smaller islands, however, in this case there is no apparent evidence for this claim, and it would appear to be merely folk etymology.

At only 40 hectares in size (about 1/6 of a sq. mile) and surrounded by tidal rips

Rip current

A rip current, commonly referred to by the misnomer rip tide, is a strong channel of water flowing seaward from near the shore, typically through the surf line. Typical flow is at 0.5 metres per second , and can be as fast as 2.5 metres per second...

which make landing difficult, it would seem unlikely that the island has ever been inhabited. However, Brother Isle was inhabited until the 1820s, latterly by brothers with the surname Tulloch. This led to the mistaken assumption that the island's name referred to them.

In 2004, a lighthouse was built on the island.