The Commission on Islands (C16.22) has been active for over a decade now, having been approved by the IGU Executive Committee at the IGU Brisbane Conference in July 2006. Since its inaugural conference was held in Taipei, Taiwan in 2007, the Commission has gathered scholars from around the world who are interested in studying islands as distinct geographical phenomena and in exploring their significance in the contexts issues concerning global change, sustainability and resilience research, cultural geography and humanities, political and economic geography, and other key aspects of development.

Conferences and meetings have been organized by the first term of Steering Committee solely or jointly co-organized with IGC, or IGU regional conferences, or in collaboration with other island studies organizations, such as International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA) and Island Dynamics. Venues of meetings include National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan (2007), Tunis, Tunisia (2008), Ven Island, Sweden (2010), Malta (2011), Cologne, Germany (2012), Penghu Archipelago, Taiwan (2013), Krakow, Poland (2014), Moscow, Russia (2015), Matzu Islands, Taiwan (2016), Leeuwarden-Terschelling, the Netherlands (2018), Orchid Island, Taiwan (2018), Trondheim, Norway (2019).