U.S. States by Coastline

Which states have the longest coastline? Until now, there has been no accurate source for state coastlines. Wikipedia has two separate lists, both of which are very inaccurate. I decided to make a better list.

Methodology
Notes
All U.S. States by Coastline

Methodology

This is based on original research by me, the JetPunk quizmaster. I wrote a script to calculate the coastline of each state based on this original data source from Natural Earth.

Notes

This does not include lakeshore
It does, however, include oceanic inlets such as Puget Sound and Chesapeake Bay
The length of coastline depends on the resolution of the data source. The higher the resolution, the longer the coastline.
The source data is not 100% perfectly accurate but it, is in my opinion, the best data source available

All U.S. States by Coastline

copied!

Kilometers	State
37,300	Alaska
4,850	Florida
2,740	California
2,600	Washington
2,590	North Carolina
2,440	Texas
2,350	Louisiana
1,820	Maryland
1,740	Maine
1,640	Virginia
1,450	Hawaii
1,190	New York
1,000	Massachusetts
812	Oregon
784	South Carolina
685	New Jersey
491	Georgia
325	Alabama
292	Rhode Island
277	Mississippi
239	Delaware
220	Connecticut
25	New Hampshire
0	Arizona
0	Arkansas
0	Colorado
0	Idaho
0	Illinois
0	Indiana
0	Iowa
0	Kansas
0	Kentucky
0	Michigan
0	Minnesota
0	Missouri
0	Montana
0	Nebraska
0	Nevada
0	New Mexico
0	North Dakota
0	Pennsylvania
0	Ohio
0	Oklahoma
0	South Dakota
0	Tennessee
0	Utah
0	Vermont
0	West Virginia
0	Wisconsin
0	Wyoming

10 Comments

Level 71

Apr 18, 2019

How did you get 39 km of coastline for PA? Neither the Chesapeake or Delaware Bays extend that far north.

Level ∞

Apr 19, 2019

Looks like our source map included part of the Delaware River, where it probably shouldn't have. I will adjust the data soon.

Level ∞

Apr 19, 2019

Okay, it's adjusted. A little tricky on where to draw the line between a river and an estuary.

Level 48

Apr 4, 2022

Technically, the Delaware River salt water line creeps up past the border of Pennsylvania, thus giving it a theoretical coastline.

Level 70

Apr 3, 2022

Alaska has more coast than usa combined lol

Level 76

Mar 18, 2024

Why don't you post this data to wikipedia?

Level 63

Sep 29, 2024

Coastline paradox

Level 75

Feb 15, 2025

This is so sad that Vermont has 0 coastline

Level 95

Apr 24, 2025

Remember, there will be substantial variations every six hours or so as the tide rises and falls. This however pales into insignificance when compared to the primary problem with determining lengths of coastline - that of scale. If you use reference points (joined by straight lines) that are, say 100 metres apart, you will get a vastly different answer than if you use reference points 50 metres apart. Of course, the bendier the coastline the more this effect is amplified. It could even be the case that if you use a small enough distance between reference points that the total distance approaches infinity! Imagine zooming in on the edge of a 30cm ruler to, say 10 micron intervals, it would be much longer than 30cm.

My point is, there isn’t really a definitive answer to the question of how long a coastline is - it depends entirely on the method you choose to employ, which might explain a lot of the discrepancies QM has observed.

Level 62

Jan 7, 2026

So wait, you claim that JetPunk loses money on much of the world besides the US, so you posted this in Kilometers?