In what at first glance appears to be an April fool’s joke, residence of Prince Edward Island woke up this morning to the news that The Guinness Book of Records had declared their province to be the largest uninhabited island in world.

As part of their annual survey of strange and bizarre facts and records, the organization which once famously declared Saskatchewan to be the least interesting stretch of land on the planet, seems to have found a way to offend Canadians once again.

While Prince Edward Island is indeed Canada's smallest province, its 136 thousand inhabitants will likely object to Guinness’ description of their island as a “wide open expanse, lacking any sign of civilization, where only the occasional hoot of a Saw-Whet owl disturbs a visitor's reveries.”

Guinness World Records, as the volume is now known is owned by the Jim Patterson Group which in turn is owned by Ripley Entertainment.

Sylvia Münchhausen, a spokesperson for the company, denied that any offence was intended. She explained that all of Guinness' published information is thoroughly checked and that mistakes seldom happen.

“We sent one of our fact finders out to the island a month ago and he reported that all he saw was one big, snowy farm field.”

During a second interview, however, Ms Münchhausen admitted that an error had indeed been made and that the company was offering an apology.

“ We want to apologise to the people of PEI for any inconvenience and embarrassment that they might have suffered. “

She went on to explain that there had been a misprint and that a correction will be made in subsequent editions.

“After checking with our employee, he confirmed that he visited Charlottetown and that the island is, indeed, filled with people of sorts. However, after spending a few days there he felt that no civilized person would ever consider living there. We subsequently categorized PEI as the most uninhabitable island in the world. Somewhere along the line a spelling error crept in.”

The 2008 edition of the Guinness World Records will be in stores in October of this year.