List of countries by length of coastline explained

This article contains a list of countries by length of coastline, in kilometers. Though the coastline paradox stipulates that coastlines do not have a well-defined length, there are various methods in use to measure coastlines through ratios and other metrics. A coastline of zero indicates that the country is landlocked.

Overview

The coastline paradox states that a coastline does not have a well-defined length. Measurements of the length of a coastline behave like a fractal, being different at different scale intervals (distance between points on the coastline at which measurements are taken). The smaller the scale interval (meaning the more detailed the measurement), the longer the coastline will be.^[1] This "magnifying" effect is greater for convoluted coastlines than for relatively smooth ones.

• Data marked The World Factbook or TWF covers 198 countries and 55 territories, from the book published by the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to coastline lengths, this is the source of the land area used to calculate the "coast/area ratio" for both TWF and WRI (see below) coastline measurement. This ratio measures how many metres of coastline correspond to every square kilometer of land area. The ratio illustrates the ease of accessibility to the country's coast from every point in its interior. Therefore, an island country like Maldives, or a country carved by the sea like Greece, is more likely to have a high ratio, while a landlocked country will have a ratio of zero. Note that the scales at which The World Factbook figures were measured are not stated, nor is it known whether the figures are all reported using the same scale, thus the figures are not necessarily comparable across different countries.
• Data marked World Resources Institute or WRI covers 182 independent countries and 13 dependencies, based on data calculated in 2000 from the World Vector Shoreline, United States Defense Mapping Agency, 1989. It may include territories whose status have changed. According to their technical notes, the "coastline length was derived from the World Vector Shoreline database at 1:250,000 scale. The estimates (...) were calculated using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and an underlying database consistent for the entire world. The methodology used to estimate length is based on the following: 1) A country's coastline is made up of individual lines, and an individual line has two or more vertices and/or nodes. 2) The length between two vertices is calculated on the surface of a sphere. 3) The sum of the lengths of the pairs of vertices is aggregated for each individual line, and 4) the sum of the lengths of individual lines was aggregated for a country. In general, the coastline length of islands that are part of a country, but are not overseas territories, are included in the coastline estimate for that country (e.g., Canary Islands are included in Spain). Coastline length for overseas territories and dependencies are listed separately. Disputed areas are not included in country or regional totals."

List

Country	The World Factbook^[2]	World Resources Institute^[3]	Land area km^2 (TWF)^[4]	Coast/area ratio (m/km^2)	Coast/area^0.5 ratio
data-sort-type="number" scope=col	Rank	scope=col	km	data-sort-type="number" scope=col	Rank	scope=col	km	scope=col	(TWF)	scope=col	(WRI)	(TWF)
^[5]	—		—	1,634,701				29.2
			1	265,523				67
			7	53,199				151
			4	95,181				40.7
^[6]	—							26
Greenland^[7]	—							30
		^[8]	3	110,310				9.3
			8	33,900				66.5
			12	29,020				49.3
			6	66,530				9.29
			2	133,312				6.59
	—							4.77
			17	17,209				29.4
			11	30,017				4.75
		^[9]	19	15,147				37.8
			16	19,717				25.3
			14	23,761				6.69
			28	9,226				14
			9	33,379				2.59
			44	5,316				35.5
			31	8,140				8.21
			18	17,181				4.06
			5	78,563				7.46
			92	1,295				231
		^[10]	42	5,664				24.7
			26	9,880				31.8
			15	20,197				7.66
			30	8,397				3.02
			29	8,506				15.7
Spain^[11]			34	7,268				7.03
			33	7,330				6.06
			25	9,935				6.33
			27	9,323				8.15
			61	2,956				18.4
			21	14,519				11.3
	—							14.4
			24	11,238				35.4
		^[12]	23	11,409				6.18
			50	3,898				4.21
			35	7,066				4.5
			13	26,384				5.02
			41	5,875				3.15
	—				<3	>1,000,000
	—	^[13]						33.7
			73	2,009				3.48
			37	6,762				2.98
			51	3,751				2.54
			45	4,953				3.66
			32	7,572				1.8
			59	3,132				22.9
French Polynesia	—		—	5,830				40.8
			49	4,009				7.19
			43	5,637				9.13
			36	6,942				2.79
			39	5,898				2.46
		^[14]	40	5,891				1.97
			55	3,362				2.13
			22	12,478				7.75
			52	3,624				4.05
New Caledonia	—		—	3,624				16.7
			47	4,597				4.25
			54	3,446				7.03
			65	2,810				3.76
Myanmar			20	14,708				2.39
			58	3,149				2.62
			63	2,830				5.93
			77	1,977				10.7
			71	2,025				1.33
			67	2,252				1.43
			84	1,754				1.73
			74	2,007				8.72
								70.9
Northern Mariana Islands	—							68.8
			38	6,437				5.52
			53	3,461				1.51
			64	2,825				5.27
			62	2,871				4.56
			70	2,069				5.71
			88	1,612				5.86
	—							11.7
			10	31,119				2.27
			79	1,927				2.91
			78	1,961				40.1
			46	4,638				8.35
Faroe Islands	—							29.9
			66	2,599				1.19
			102	895				9.82
			90	1,557				0.647
			97	1,121				15.2
	—				<5	>200,000
			80	1,915				2.63
			72	2,019				1.74
			60	3,122				0.894
			68	2,245				0.648
		^[15]	82	1,878				2.49
			94	1,268				0.743
Hong Kong	—		—	955				22.4
								5.79
British Indian Ocean Territory	—							90.1
			98	1,096				1.58
			112	671				6.74
			75	2,002				37.3
			56	3,306				1.61
			104	842				1.87
			100	909				5.23
			106	758				1.13
			89	1,586				0.71
			91	1,327				1.21
	—							186
Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)			105	797				0.913
Puerto Rico	—		—	1,094				5.29
			107	756				3.74
			116	566				2
			109	747				23
			95	1,154				1.03
		^[16]	81	1,914				2.45
			96	1,127				1.05
			99	1,032				0.798
			101	909				15.6
			120	463				7.59
			83	1,799				0.585
			86	1,677				1.5
			122	445				1.22
Turks and Caicos Islands	—							12.6
			76	1,996				2.56
			114	620				0.977
			69	2,106				27.5
	—							17.3
			113	649				2.19
			110	704				5.06
			121	457				1.07
			57	3,176				2.09
			119	469				7.19
			87	1,615				0.646
			123	443				2.06
			124	376				1.17
			108	756				2.13
			115	603				1.77
								2.53
		^[17]	136	205				1.86
			137	198				14.2
			125	294				2.22
			111	696				0.469
			128	269				6.73
			129	268				7.25
			134	212				0.448
	—		—	390				10.1
			118	496				3.93
			135	205				0.289
			132	255				5.84
			127	269				2.22
Cayman Islands	—							9.85
	—							6.69
			139	166				6.42
			126	289				7.27
			141	152				5.4
Christmas Island	—							12
								8.36
Wallis and Futuna	—							10.8
Guam	—							5.38
	—							6.39
			140	153				0.364
			133	252				6.52
								7.81
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	—							7.71
American Samoa	—							7.75
Bermuda	—		—	180				14
Heard Island and McDonald Islands	—							5.02
Tokelau	—							29.2
			143	97				4.68
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha	—	^[18]						4.74
			131	258				0.359
^[19]	—							18.1
			130	264				4.26
	—				^[20]			5.26
	—							6.51
			117	503				0.795
	—							33.1
	—							6.5
Aruba	—		—	107				5.11
			144	76				0.382
								3.97
Anguilla	—							6.39
	—	^[21]						7.99
			142	105				0.0877
			145	53				0.24
	—							7.44
	—							5.66
			146	41				0.328
	—		—	36				7.72
(Palestine)								2.11
Montserrat	—							3.96
			138	177				0.0246
Norfolk Island	—							5.33
								6.55
Bouvet Island	—							4.23
Cocos (Keeling) Islands	—							6.95
		^[22]	147	27				0.0872
								4.71
			148	23				0.0884
	—							7.57
Gibraltar	—							4.71
	—							4.53
	—							3.44
								2.9
	—	NA
	—	NA^[23]
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands	—	NA
		0^[24]	48	4,528
		0^[25]	93	1,289
		0^[26]	103	871
(Palestine)		^[27]
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
			149	0
		0	85	1,707
			149	0
			149	0
French Guiana			—	763
Guadeloupe			—	581
Martinique			—	369
			—	361
Reunion			—	219

See also

• Coastal India
• Coastline of Brazil
• Coastline of China
• Coastline of Malta
• Coastline of New Zealand
• Coastline of the United Kingdom
• Coastline of Western Australia
• List of countries bordering on two or more oceans
• List of U.S. states by coastline

Further reading

• Book: Eric Bird. Coastal Geomorphology: An Introduction. 2011. John Wiley and Sons. 978-1-119-96435-3. 1.5 Coastline length. https://books.google.com/books?id=raVksgTZQSAC&pg=PT26. none.

Notes and References

1. The smaller the scale interval mathematically, the more detailed and the "greater the scale of the map", in common usage. See scale (map).
2. Web site: Coastline - The World Factbook. www.cia.gov.
3. Web site: Coastal and Marine Ecosystems — Marine Jurisdictions: Coastline length. World Resources Institute. 2012-03-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20120419075053/http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/coastal-marine/variable-61.html. 2012-04-19.
4. Web site: Field Listing :: Area — The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency. October 22, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201022070334/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/fields/279.html. 2020-10-22.
5. World total includes countries not listed and coastline for disputed areas.
6. The European Union is included because it has certain attributes associated with independent countries: its own flag, anthem, currency (for most members), parliament and other law-making abilities, as well as diplomatic representation and a common foreign and security policy when dealing with external partners. However, because the EU is not a federation in the strict sense, it does not receive a ranking in this list.
7. [Greenland]
8. Russia has an additional 850 km of coastline along the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked.
9. Includes coastline of outlying islands.
10. Includes coastline of outlying islands.
11. Includes coastline length for the Canary Islands.
12. Excludes minor outlying islands.
13. Does not include Saint Paul Island and the Crozet Islands (data unavailable) or the Adélie Land claim to Antarctica.
14. Iran has an additional 740 km of coastline along the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked.
15. Includes coastline in the Gulf of Fonseca (163 km).
16. In 1900, the Dutch coastline measured approximately 1400 km. It has significantly been reduced by the closing of the Zuiderzee by the Afsluitdijk in 1932 (250 km) and the closing of several sea arms by the Delta Works (700 km).
17. Israel has an additional coastline along the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee (both landlocked), with a total length of 63 km.
18. Excluding Ascension Island (data unavailable).
19. Includes Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll.
20. Figure represents total area rather than land area.
21. Figure represents the coastline of the entire island, including Sint Maarten (administered by the Netherlands).
22. Jordan has an additional 50 km of coastline along the Dead Sea, which is landlocked.
23. Coastline included in figure for Saint Martin (administered by France).
24. Kazakhstan has a coastline with the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked, with a total length of 1,894 km.
25. Turkmenistan has a coastline with the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked, with a total length of 1,768 km.
26. Azerbaijan has a 713-km coastline along the Caspian Sea, which is landlocked.
27. The West Bank has a 40-km coastline along the Dead Sea, which is landlocked.