The coastline of North America


Unlike the continents of tropical latitudes, North America has a much more dismembered coastline. There are many islands, peninsulas, bays and straits.

Near the northern and eastern shores of the continent lie islands of continental origin. Among them, Greenland is the largest island in the world. Its area is 3.5 times larger than the territory of Ukraine. The islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are immersed in the cold waters of the Arctic Ocean. They lie only a thousand kilometers from the North Pole. These islands arose after the retreat of the ancient glacier, which “plowed” the narrow straits separating them from the mainland and from Greenland. Near the east coast of North America is the island of Newfoundland.

In the southeast the mainland is surrounded by two garlands of islands of the Caribbean Sea: the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles. Most of them are of volcanic origin.

On the shores of the mainland there are many comfortable bays and deep bays. The largest among them are: in the north – the Hudson Bay, in the south – the Mexican, in the northwest – the Gulf of Alaska, in the southwest – the Gulf of California. The heavily indented coasts of North America form numerous peninsulas: Labrador in the northeast, Florida and Yucatan in the southeast, California in the southwest, Alaska in the northwest.


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The coastline of North America