first published week of: 02/04/2013
blog.education.nationalgeographic.com
Did you know that the coast of the U.S. state of Maine is longer than the coast of California? It is, depending on how you measure it. Measuring a coastline, it turns out, is a complicated matter and can have varying results depending on the method and tools used.
Take a look at the coastlines of British Columbia in Canada, Alaska in the United States or Norway in northern Europe. The coastline in these places curves inward and outward everywhere, extrudes into the ocean, become discontinuous at water inlets, and zigzags continuously. It is dotted with bays, coves, and the little inlets that rivers and streams empty into and islands off the coast?
When we measure the coastline, do we also include all of these geographic features as part of it? The coastline of the state of Maine is only about 370 kilometers (230 miles) from one end to another. However, when measured taking into consideration its irregularities such as inlets and offshore islands, its length increases to more than 5,542 kilometers (3,450 miles)! It comes to no surprise then that it is counterintuitively difficult to measure the exact length of a coastline. continued…