Coastline paradox  

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The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the fractal-like properties of coastlines. The first recorded observation of this phenomenon was by Lewis Fry Richardson.

More concretely, the length of the coastline depends on the method used to measure it. Since a landmass has features at all scales, from hundreds of kilometers in size to tiny fractions of a millimeter and below, there is no obvious limit to the size of the smallest feature that should not be measured around, and hence no single well-defined perimeter to the landmass. Various approximations exist when specific assumptions are made about minimum feature size.

For practical considerations, an appropriate choice of minimum feature size is on the order of the units being used to measure. If a coastline is measured in kilometers, then small variations much smaller than one kilometer are easily ignored. To measure the coastline in centimeters, tiny variations the size of centimeters must be considered. However, at scales on the order of centimeters various arbitrary and non-fractal assumptions must be made, such as where an estuary joins the sea, or where in a broad tidal flat the coastline measurements ought to be taken. Using different measurement methodologies for different units also destroys the usual certainty that units can be converted by a simple multiplication.

Extreme cases of the coastline paradox include the fjord-heavy coastlines of Norway, Chile and the Pacific Northwest of North America. From the southern tip of Vancouver Island northwards to the southern tip of the Alaska Panhandle, the convolutions of the coastline of the Canadian province of British Columbia make it over 10% of the entire Canadian coastline—Template:Convert vs Template:ConvertTemplate:Clarify over a linear distance of only Template:Convert, including the maze of islands of the Arctic archipelago.

See also

• The map and the territory
• Fractal dimension
• How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
• Paradox of the heap