This is a list of U.S. states and territories ranked by their coastline length. 30 states have a

coastline A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

: 23 with a coastline on the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

(including the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

and Gulf of Maine), and/or

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, and 8 with a

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

shoreline. New York has coasts on both the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. Smaller border lakes, such as

Lake Champlain Lake Champlain ( ; , ) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec. The cities of Burlington, Ve ...

and Lake of the Woods, are not counted. All of the five major U.S. territories have coastlines: three of them have a coastline on the Pacific Ocean, and two of them have a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean (

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

). The U.S. Minor Outlying Islands also have coastlines. Two separate measurements are used: method 1 only includes states with ocean coastline and excludes tidal inlets; method 2 includes Great Lake shoreline and the extra length from tidal inlets. For example, method 2 counts the Great Bay as part of

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

's coastline, but method 1 does not. Method 1 does not include the coastlines of the territories of the United States, and method 2 does. The data for method 1 are from a CRS Report for

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

using data from ''U.S.

Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business ...

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...

, The Coastline of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, 1975''. This is based on measurements made using large-scale

nautical chart A nautical chart or hydrographic chart is a graphic representation of a sea region or water body and adjacent coasts or river bank, banks. Depending on the scale (map), scale of the chart, it may show depths of water (bathymetry) and heights of ...

s. The figure for Connecticut was arrived at separately and may not reflect the correct comparative distance. The data for method 2 are from a list maintained by the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management of NOAA. The state coastline lengths were computed by an unspecified method that includes tidal areas not included in the first method. These numbers also include the Great Lakes coastlines, which do not have similar tidal areas. Data for the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands is from the

CIA World Factbook ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print ve ...

.The World Factbook
CIA World Factbook. United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
CIA World Factbook. Wake Island. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
CIA World Factbook. Navassa Island. Retrieved August 29, 2019. The figures also face the ambiguity inherent in all attempts at measuring coastlines, as expressed in the coastline paradox. __TOC__

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External links

{{USStateLists

Coastline A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

Coasts of the United States

United States, Coastline U.S. states and territories

Table

Notes

See also

References

External links