Which country has the longest coastline?
Quick answer
Canada has the longest coastline in the world, at about 202,080 km (125,567 miles), according to the CIA World Factbook. That’s more than five times the distance around Earth’s equator. Its many Arctic islands, bays and fjords along three oceans, the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic, make it so long.
Top 10 countries by coastline
| Rank | Country | Coastline (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | 202,080 km |
| 2 | Norway | 58,133 km (including islands) |
| 3 | Indonesia | 54,716 km |
| 4 | Greenland (Denmark) | 44,087 km |
| 5 | Russia | 37,653 km |
| 6 | Philippines | 36,289 km |
| 7 | Japan | 29,751 km |
| 8 | Australia | 25,760 km |
| 9 | United States | 19,924 km |
| 10 | New Zealand | 15,134 km |
Different sources give different figures, sometimes very different ones.
Why coastlines are hard to measure
This puzzle is called the coastline paradox. If you measure a coast with a 100 km ruler, you skip small bays. Use a 1 km ruler and you trace more twists, so the total gets longer. Measure every rock and inlet and the length keeps growing. That’s why each country’s “official” coastline depends on the method and scale used. Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot used this idea in 1967 to help explain fractals.
Canada’s coast in numbers
- Canada has more than 52,000 islands, including Baffin Island, the fifth largest island in the world.
- About 70% of its coastline is in the Arctic.
- Canada also has more lakes than any other country: see which country has the most lakes.
Countries with no coast
There are 44 landlocked countries, including Switzerland, Mongolia, Bolivia and Ethiopia. Two, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are “doubly landlocked,” surrounded only by other landlocked countries.
Canada’s Pacific coast is close to Alaska, where only the Bering Strait separates North America from Russia.
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