Helgoland, also spelled Heligoland, island, Schleswig-HolsteinLand (state), northwestern Germany. It lies in the German Bay (Deutsche Bucht) of the North Sea, in the angle between the coast of Schleswig-Holstein and the estuaries of the Jade, Weser, and Elbe rivers, 40 miles (65 km) offshore northwest of Cuxhaven. The 520-acre (210-hectare) island consists of a level, cliff-girded, red sandstone plateau, called the Oberland (184 feet [56 metres] at its highest point); a smaller, low sandy tract in the southeast, the Unterland, extended by reclamation; and a low sandy island 0.25 mile (0.4 km) east, called Düne. Geological and historical evidence suggest that Helgoland and Düne are the last remnants of a single island whose periphery in ad 800 was about 120 miles (190 km). Continuous wave attack on the cliffs and a rise in sea level or fall in land level had reduced the island’s periphery to about 8 miles (13 km) by 1649. It has an oceanic climate with mild winter temperatures.
Occupied originally by Frisian herdsmen and fishermen, the island came under the control of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein in 1402 and became a Danish possession in 1714. Seized by the British navy in 1807, it was formally ceded in 1814 to Britain, which in 1890 transferred it to Germany in exchange for Zanzibar and other African territories. The Germans developed the island into the “Gibraltar of the North Sea” with a great naval base, extensive harbour and dockyard installations, underground fortifications, and coastal batteries. In constant use by German naval forces in World War I, the military and naval works were demolished in 1920–22 in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, and the island became a popular tourist resort. Under the Nazi regime, however, it was again made a naval stronghold and sustained severe Allied bombing toward the end of World War II. Before its destruction, the town of Helgoland extended from the Unterland to the Oberland, where the church occupied the highest point of the island. With the defeat of Germany, the population was evacuated, and the British occupation authorities changed the physical character of much of the island when they destroyed the remaining fortifications by deep blasting. The island was used as a bombing range by the Royal Air Force until it was returned to West Germany on March 1, 1952. The town, the harbour, and the bathing resort on Düne have been rebuilt. The island is used in navigation, as a site for wind-energy production, and in scientific research, especially the study of birds.