Can you name the countries with the longest coastlines? - sporcle

Can you name the countries with the longest coastlines? Enter a country in the box below Correctly named countries will show up in the table below Answers do not have to be guessed in order Coastline areas measured by CIA World Factbook You have 7 minutes to guess after you click the button below.	Popular trivia games today Fast Math 2 24147 One-Word #1 Songs 19552 Political Parties with Electoral Votes 9767 Sports Figures In Other Words 8622 Vowel-less Book Titles 7927 Four Letter Things 7362 Populated Neighboring Countries 4468 And more...
Ready? Click to Start Enter country: 0/25 countries correct	Time remaining:

Rank	Country	Length
1		202,080 km
2		54,726 km
3		51,401 km
4		37,653 km
5		36,289 km
6		25,791 km
7		25,760 km
8		25,148 km
9		19,924 km
10		15,134 km
11		14,500 km
12		13,676 km
13		12,429 km

Rank	Country	Length
14		9,330 km
15		7,600 km
16		7,491 km
17		7,200 km
18		7,000 km
19		6,435 km
20		6,112 km
21		5,835 km
22		5,313 km
23		5,152 km
24		4,989 km
25		4,988 km

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There are 172 comments for this game.
(Warning: comments may contain spoilers)

Longest Coastlines

Rating:	Share
Plays: 134,288
Published: March 12th, 2009

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Tags: length, rank, country, castling, longest

	Becca:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 04:38 GMT	17 points
	croatia???? what? and i had no idea either micronesia or solomon islands were large enough to have that much of a coastline....

	acroarcs:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 04:39 GMT	38 points
	Seriously on Croatia. What? That's a whole lot of tiny islands and peninsulas stuffed in the Adriatic, there.

	meinhorn11:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 04:49 GMT	42 points
	What about Madagascar? If iceland is on the list I feel as if that absolutely would be

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	jdhartnagle:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 04:53 GMT	8 points
	no south africa either

	vogz:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 04:54 GMT	2 points
	can't believe i forgot brazil...21/25 i liked this one...and i missed #5 as well...just not thinking straight i suppose

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	DandN:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 05:05 GMT	35 points
	It's not the area of the island, it's the length of the COASTLINE. Iceland's coastline is a lot more jagged and meandering than Madagascar's. Never would have guessed Croatia in a million years though, and once AGAIN I spell it the stinkin' Soloman Islands and lose out there. Ugh.

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	JulieD:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 05:17 GMT	14 points
	Wouldn't have thought of Croatia either. And I had no idea our (Canada's) islands and whatnot added up to so long, but I guess it make sense.

	kcap1:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 05:22 GMT	18 points
	Definitely spelled Solomon Islands wrong and forgot about Micronesia, which I always seem to do. Besides that all I missed was Iceland, which I should have thought of. These are definitely my favorite types of quizzes.

	DrumBum88:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 05:47 GMT	18 points
	Madagascar has around 150 less miles of coastline than Iceland. So close!!

	Jordan117:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 06:09 GMT	7 points
	I'm amazed that Croatia has a longer coastline than, say, France. I guess all those islands really do make a difference.

	JD_Salinger:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 06:22 GMT	30 points
	Damn you, Denmark!!! Hogging Greenland all the time.

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	marpocky:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 06:47 GMT	6 points
	Coastline is a linear measure, and hence not an area.

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	SowCrates:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 07:52 GMT	9 points
	List of ones I thought would be next: South Africa Madagascar Saudi Arabia (reach) Cambodia Peru Sweden Spain France

	Freakzilla:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 08:16 GMT	-1 points
	missed two obvious ones with #5 and #18 :/

	lil_lemur:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 08:36 GMT	16 points
	denmark always cheats in these quizzes (including greenland ... what a joke). they should be banned for unfair play!

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	adal:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 08:47 GMT	28 points
	I just checked the source and it says "Croatia: 5,835 km (mainland 1,777 km, islands 4,058 km)". That's a lot of islands.

	Lauro:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 08:47 GMT	5 points
	Good one. Only missed Micronesia.

	pdu:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 09:42 GMT	4 points
	Missed Iceland and Croatia. I wouldn't have guessed Croatia any time soon ...

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	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 09:54 GMT	32 points
	@Zala G.: If you look at even a large-scale map, the coastline of Croatia is obviously at least four or five times that of Montenegro. Montenegro is a small, squarish country, one side of which is coastal; Croatia is a very long, thin country that covers almost the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic. And then it has hundreds of islands and wiggly bits. (Which is the official, technical term, honest.)

	Peter:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:10 GMT	7 points
	@davidr - is it? really?

	delToro87:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:19 GMT	11 points
	A lot of these are really counter-intuitive - for example, I can't believe that the coastline of the USA is less than twice the length of the UK's. And, like everyone else it seems, I tried Madagascar several times, in disbelief it was not there but Micronesia was! Still, its good when a quiz has different answers than you expect.

	maio:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:31 GMT	18 points
	Croatia has 1180 islands. It adds up.

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	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:48 GMT	12 points
	@R: It's length, not area: the column header is in error. But there is a real question in here: the source doesn't say at what scale they're measuring the coastline or even if they're measuring every country at the same scale. Since coastlines are fractal, this can make a massive difference.

	shel99:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:52 GMT	4 points
	I didn't realize Croatia had so many islands. Missed that one and Papua New Guinea, and I don't know why I didn't try it -- I thought of it and then for whatever reason didn't type it in!

	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:10 GMT	6 points
	I'd been meaning to write this quiz myself for a while but now I see why I didn't get round to it. Not only is the CIA's data not sorted but sometimes it includes islands and sometimes it doesn't: the quoted figure for Norway excludes 58,133km of island coastline!! Like del Toro, I'm very suspicious of the claim that the USA's coastline is barely 50% longer than the UK's. Still, I guess that roughly the right countries are in the top 25: they certainly all have very long coastlines.

	rahv:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:23 GMT	10 points
	excellent quiz. however, i don't like how the source is structured. for instance: does the uk-coastline include overseas territories? st helena is listed seperately (as is guam and a few others, for that matter). same with france: french polynesia is listed seperately but adding it to the frensh coastline would place france in the top20 of this list. once again i am unsure what the difference is between things like "member countries" (such as greenland), overseas territories, collectivities, etc. and which of these should be counted.

	oldmanscene24:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:23 GMT	2 points
	@vogz - I did the exact same thing. 21/25 and forgot Brazil. What's sad is I got the other South American countries.

	LeeC:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:47 GMT	9 points
	Frace has a coast line of 5,500km (North Sea, English Channel, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean) why aren't they on this list? On another note, everyone going on about Denmark inc. Greenland again. Denmark has a coastline of 7,314km WITHOUT Greenland.

	daisyap:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:49 GMT	5 points
	I'm surprised Madgascar isn't there. I got 21.

	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 12:26 GMT	5 points
	@LeeC: The source lists France as having a coastline of only 4668 km, even including French Guiana. But it's very dependent on the scale you measure at. Suppose you have a rock a foot in diameter poking out of the see just off the shore. That has a `coastline' of about 1m. So, if you have a thousand rocks like that, that's an extra kilometre of coastline, if you're measuring at that scale. If you're measuring at a larger scale, you'll miss that kilometer and lots of little wiggles.

	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 12:31 GMT	6 points
	@ared: In general, overseas possessions, territories and collectivities aren't included but integral parts of countries that are disconnected from the main part are included. So, the USA includes Hawaii and Alaska but not Guam and Puerto Rico; Denmark includes Greenland and should also include the Faroe Islands, which have about 1,000km of coastline, France includes French Guiana but not French Polynesia (which would add another 2,500km); the UK includes Northern Ireland but not the Falklands or Gibraltar.