Canada's coastline is the longest in the world
Canada touches three oceans, and its shoreline is so jagged it stretches more than 240,000 kilometres — enough to wrap around the equator six times.
Canada is only the second-largest country by land area, but it has the longest coastline of any nation on Earth. According to Statistics Canada, that coastline measures 243,042 kilometres, counting the mainland and the shores of its many offshore islands.
The country fronts on three oceans — the Pacific to the west, the Atlantic to the east and the Arctic to the north. Much of the length comes from the fractured, fjord-laced Arctic archipelago, where thousands of islands multiply the amount of shoreline.
Laid end to end, Canada’s coast would circle the equator more than six times.
Exact figures vary because coastlines are famously hard to measure — finer measuring sticks reveal ever more wrinkles, so other sources quote figures nearer 202,000 km. By any reckoning, though, Canada comfortably leads the world.
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