www.old.static.elasticsearch-stg.tentaclequizgroup.com Open in urlscan Pro
38.154.242.234  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water
For other uses, see Island (disambiguation).



This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying
the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of
original research should be removed. (December 2021) (Learn how and when to
remove this message)

Cyprus, the third largest island in the Mediterranean. Cyprus is about 240 km
long and 100 km wide.

An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by
water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called
islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be
called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm.
Sedimentary islands in the Ganges Delta are called chars. A grouping of
geographically or geologically related islands, such as the Philippines, is
referred to as an archipelago.

There are two main types of islands in the sea: continental islands and oceanic
islands. There are also artificial islands (man-made islands).

There are about 900,000 official islands in the world. This number consists of
all the officially-reported islands of each country. The total number of islands
in the world is unknown. There may be hundreds of thousands of tiny islands that
are unknown and uncounted.[1] The number of sea islands in the world is
estimated to be more than 200,000. The total area of the world's sea islands is
approx. 9,963,000 km2, which is similar to the area of Canada and accounts for
roughly 1/15 (or 6.7%) of the total land area of Earth.[2]


CONTENTS

 * 1 Etymology
 * 2 Relationships with continents
   * 2.1 Differentiation from continents
   * 2.2 Continental islands
     * 2.2.1 Microcontinental islands
     * 2.2.2 Subcontinental islands
     * 2.2.3 Bars
   * 2.3 Oceanic islands
     * 2.3.1 Tectonic
     * 2.3.2 Volcanic islands
       * 2.3.2.1 Arcs
       * 2.3.2.2 Oceanic rifts
       * 2.3.2.3 Hotspots
       * 2.3.2.4 Atolls
 * 3 Tropical islands
 * 4 De-islanding
 * 5 Artificial islands
 * 6 Island superlatives
 * 7 See also
 * 8 References
 * 9 External links


ETYMOLOGY[EDIT]

The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland (from
ig or ieg, similarly meaning 'island' when used independently, and -land
carrying its contemporary meaning; cf. Dutch eiland ("island"), German Eiland
("small island")).The spelling of the word was modified in the 15th century
because of a false etymology caused by an incorrect association with the
etymologically unrelated Old French loanword isle, which itself comes from the
Latin word insula.[3][4] Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and
German Aue, and more distantly related to Latin aqua (water).[5]


RELATIONSHIPS WITH CONTINENTS[EDIT]


DIFFERENTIATION FROM CONTINENTS[EDIT]

Dymaxion world map with continental landmasses (I,II,III,IV) and largest islands
(1–30) roughly to scale

There is no standard of size that distinguishes islands from continents,[6] or
from islets.[7]

There is a widely accepted difference between islands and continents in terms of
geology.[8] Continents are often considered to be the largest landmass of a
particular continental plate; this holds true for Australia, which sits on its
own continental lithosphere and tectonic plate (the Australian Plate).[9]

By contrast, islands are usually seen as being extensions of the oceanic crust
(e.g. volcanic islands), or as belonging to a continental plate containing a
larger landmass (continental islands); the latter is the case of Greenland,
which sits on the North American Plate.[10]


CONTINENTAL ISLANDS[EDIT]

Further information: Continental shelf

Continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a
continent.[11] Examples are Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Sakhalin, Taiwan and Hainan
off Asia; New Guinea, Tasmania, and Kangaroo Island off Australia; Great
Britain, Ireland, and Sicily off Europe; Greenland, Newfoundland, Long Island,
and Sable Island off North America; and Barbados, the Falkland Islands, and
Trinidad off South America.

MICROCONTINENTAL ISLANDS[EDIT]

A special type of continental island is the microcontinental island, which is
created when a continent is horizontally displaced or rifted.[12][13] Examples
are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and some of
the Seychelles.[13]

SUBCONTINENTAL ISLANDS[EDIT]

A lake such as Wollaston Lake drains in two different directions, thus creating
an island. If this island has a seashore as well as being encircled by two river
systems, it becomes what might be called a subcontinental island. The one formed
by Wollaston Lake is very large, about 2,000,000 km2 (770,000 sq mi).[14]

BARS[EDIT]

Another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where
water current loses some of its carrying capacity. This includes:

 * barrier islands, which are accumulations of sand deposited by sea currents on
   the continental shelves[15][16]
 * fluvial or alluvial islands formed in river deltas or midstream within large
   rivers. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of
   the current changes, others are stable and long-lived.[17]


OCEANIC ISLANDS[EDIT]

Oceanic islands are typically considered to be islands that do not sit on
continental shelves. Other definitions limit the term to only refer to islands
with no past geological connections to a continental landmass.[18] The vast
majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic
Ocean, and the archipelago of Bermuda in the North Atlantic Ocean (a limestone
capped volcanic seamount).[19][20]

TECTONIC[EDIT]

The few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise
where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples
are the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and
Macquarie Island in the South Pacific Ocean.

VOLCANIC ISLANDS[EDIT]

Main article: Volcanic island

ARCS[EDIT]

One type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These
islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is
occurring. Examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of
Tonga in the Pacific Ocean.[21][22] The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are
some of the Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands.

OCEANIC RIFTS[EDIT]

Further information: Divergent boundary

Another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the
surface. There are two examples: Iceland, which is the world's second-largest
volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. Both islands are in the Atlantic Ocean.

HOTSPOTS[EDIT]

Main article: Hotspot (geology)

A third type of volcanic oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A
hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above
it, so a chain of islands results as the plate drifts. Over long periods of
time, this type of island is eventually "drowned" by isostatic adjustment and
eroded, becoming a seamount.[23] Plate movement across a hot-spot produces a
line of islands oriented in the direction of the plate movement. An example is
the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii to Kure, which continue beneath the sea
surface in a more northerly direction as the Emperor Seamounts. Another chain
with similar orientation is the Tuamotu Archipelago; its older, northerly trend
is the Line Islands. The southernmost chain is the Austral Islands, with its
northerly trending part the atolls in the nation of Tuvalu. Tristan da Cunha is
an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean.[24] Another hotspot in
the Atlantic is the island of Surtsey, which was formed in 1963.[25]

ATOLLS[EDIT]

Main article: Atoll

An atoll is an island formed from a coral reef that has grown on an eroded and
submerged volcanic island. The reef rises to the surface of the water and forms
a new island. Atolls are typically ring-shaped with a central lagoon. Examples
are the Line Islands in the Pacific Ocean and Maldives in the Indian Ocean.[26]

Map from Charles Darwin's 1842 The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs
showing the world's major groups of atolls and coral reefs


TROPICAL ISLANDS[EDIT]

Main article: Coral island
Further information: Coral reef § Formation
Plane landing on an airport island, Velana International Airport, Hulhulé
Island, Maldives

Approximately 45,000 tropical islands with an area of at least 5 hectares (12
acres) exist.[27] Examples formed from coral reefs include Maldives, Tonga,
Samoa, Nauru, and Polynesia.[27] Granite islands include Seychelles[28] and
Tioman.

The socio-economic diversity of tropical islands ranges from the Stone Age
societies in the interior of North Sentinel, Madagascar, Borneo, and Papua New
Guinea to the high-tech lifestyles of the city-islands of Singapore and Hong
Kong.[29] International tourism is a significant factor in the economy of many
tropical islands including Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Réunion, Hawaii,
Puerto Rico and the Maldives.


DE-ISLANDING[EDIT]

The process of de-islandisation is often concerning bridging, but there are
other forms of linkages such as causeways: fixed transport links across narrow
necks of water, some of which are only operative at low tides (e.g. that
connecting Cornwall's St Michael's Mount to the peninsular mainland), while
others (such as the Canso Causeway connecting Cape Breton to the Nova Scotia
mainland) are usable all year round (aside from interruptions during storm surge
periods).[30][31]

Some places may retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after
being connected to a larger landmass by a land bridge or landfill, such as Coney
Island and Coronado Island, though these are, strictly speaking, tied
islands.[31] Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by
a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal, more or less
the entirety of Fennoscandia by the White Sea Canal, or Marble Hill in northern
Manhattan during the time between the building of the United States Ship Canal
and the filling in of the Harlem River which surrounded the area, it is
generally not considered an island.

Another type of connection is fostered by harbor walls/breakwaters that
incorporate offshore islets into their structures, such as those in Sai harbor
in northern Honshu, Japan, and the connection to the mainland which transformed
Ilhéu do Diego from an islet. De-islanded through its fixed link to the
mainland, the former islet's name, Ilhéu do Diego, became functionally redundant
(and thereby archaic) and the location took the fort as its namesake. Some
former island sites have retained designations as islands after the
draining/subsidence of surrounding waters and their fixed linkage to land
(England's Isle of Ely and Vancouver's Granville Island being respective cases
in point). Their names are thereby archaic in that they reflect the islands'
pasts rather than their present structures or transport logistics. Other
examples include Singapore and its causeway, and the various Dutch delta
islands, such as IJsselmonde.


ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS[EDIT]

Main article: Artificial island

Almost all of Earth's islands are natural and have been formed by tectonic
forces or volcanic eruptions. However, artificial (man-made) islands also exist,
such as the island in Osaka Bay off the Japanese island of Honshu, on which
Kansai International Airport is located. Artificial islands can be built using
natural materials (e.g., earth, rock, or sand) or artificial ones (e.g.,
concrete slabs or recycled waste).[32][33]

Sometimes natural islands are artificially enlarged, such as Vasilyevsky Island
in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, which had its western shore extended
westward by some 0.5 km in the construction of the Passenger Port of St.
Petersburg.[34]

Kansai International Airport, on an artificial island

Artificial islands are sometimes built on pre-existing "low-tide elevation," a
naturally formed area of land which is surrounded by and above water at low tide
but submerged at high tide. Legally these are not islands and have no
territorial sea of their own.[35]


ISLAND SUPERLATIVES[EDIT]

 * Largest island: Greenland[36]
 * Largest island in a lake: Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada[36]
   * Largest lake island within a lake island: Treasure Island, in Lake
     Mindemoya on Manitoulin Island[37]
 * Largest island in a river: Bananal Island, Tocantins, Brazil[38]
 * Largest island in fresh water: Marajó, Pará, Brazil
 * Largest sand island: Fraser Island, Queensland, Australia[39]
 * Largest artificial island: Flevopolder, the Netherlands (created 1969)[40]
 * Largest uninhabited island: Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada[41]
 * Most populous island: Java, Indonesia[42]
 * Lowest island: Franchetti Island, Lake Afrera, Ethiopia
 * Island shared by largest number of countries: Borneo (Brunei, Indonesia,
   Malaysia)
 * Island with the highest point: New Guinea (Puncak Jaya, 4,884 m, 16,024 ft),
   Indonesia
 * Northernmost island: Kaffeklubben Island, Greenland
 * Southernmost island (not fully surrounded by permanent ice): Ross Island,
   Antarctica
 * Island with the most populated city: Honshu (Tokyo), Japan
 * Most remote island (from nearest land): Bouvet Island[43]
 * Island with earliest known settlement: Sumatra (Lida Ajer cave), Indonesia


SEE ALSO[EDIT]

 * Islands portal

 * Desert island
 * Great wall of sand
 * Island biogeography
 * Island ecology
 * Island country
 * Island hopping
 * Lake island
 * List of ancient islands
 * List of archipelagos
 * List of artificial islands
 * List of divided islands
 * List of fictional islands
 * List of island countries
 * List of islands by area
 * List of islands by body of water
 * List of islands by continent
 * List of islands by country
 * List of islands by highest point
 * List of islands by name
 * List of islands by population
 * List of islands by population density
 * List of islands named after people
 * Phantom island
 * Private island
 * River island
 * Rock fever
 * Small Island Developing States
 * Tidal island


REFERENCES[EDIT]

 1.  ^ "How Many Islands are there in the World?". AZ Animals. Retrieved July 8,
     2023.
 2.  ^ 形形色色的海洋岛屿 (in Chinese)
 3.  ^ "Island". Dictionary.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2007.
     Retrieved March 5, 2007.
 4.  ^ Wedgwood, Hensleigh (1855). "On False Etymologies". Transactions of the
     Philological Society (6): 66. Archived from the original on November 6,
     2018. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
 5.  ^ Ringe, Donald A. (2006). A Linguistic History of English: From
     Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic. Oxford University Press. p. 109.
     ISBN 0-19-928413-X.
 6.  ^ Brown, Mike (2010). How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. New
     York: Random House Digital. pp. 186–187. ISBN 978-0-385-53108-5. Archived
     from the original on April 19, 2016.
 7.  ^ Royle, Stephen A. (2001). A Geography of Islands: Small Island
     Insularity. Psychology Press. pp. 7–11. ISBN 1-85728-865-3. Archived from
     the original on September 21, 2015.
 8.  ^ Cunningham, John M. "Is Australia an Island?". Encyclopædia Britannica
     (Online ed.). Archived from the original on January 25, 2019. Retrieved
     August 20, 2022.
 9.  ^ "Continent". National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived
     from the original on July 16, 2019. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 10. ^ "Island". National Geographic Society. August 27, 2012. Archived from the
     original on June 17, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2022.
 11. ^ "Island (geography)". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original
     on October 8, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2014.
 12. ^ Scrutton, Roger A. (2013), "Microcontinents and their Significance", in
     Drake, Charles L. (ed.), Geodynamics: Progress and Prospects, Special
     Publications, Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union, pp. 177–189,
     doi:10.1029/sp005p0177, ISBN 978-1-118-66490-2, retrieved August 20, 2022
 13. ^ a b Broek, J. M.; Gaina, C. (August 2020). "Microcontinents and
     Continental Fragments Associated With Subduction Systems". Tectonics. 39
     (8). Bibcode:2020Tecto..3906063V. doi:10.1029/2020TC006063.
     hdl:10852/81785. ISSN 0278-7407. S2CID 225376789.
 14. ^ "Technical Program". Eastern Athabasca Regional Monitoring Program.
     Archived from the original on October 29, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
 15. ^ Hoyt, John H. (September 1, 1967). "Barrier Island Formation". GSA
     Bulletin. 78 (9): 1125–1136.
     doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1967)78[1125:bif]2.0.co;2. Archived from the original
     on January 19, 2022. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
 16. ^ Davis, Richard A. (1994), Davis, Richard A. (ed.), "Barrier Island
     Systems — a Geologic Overview", Geology of Holocene Barrier Island Systems,
     Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 1–46,
     doi:10.1007/978-3-642-78360-9_1, ISBN 978-3-642-78362-3, archived from the
     original on August 21, 2022, retrieved August 21, 2022
 17. ^ Cooperman, Michael S. (January 1, 1997). The process of mid-channel
     alluvial island formation as inferred from plant distribution patterns on
     islands of the Swan River northwest Montana (MSc). The University of
     Montana. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021. Retrieved August
     21, 2022.
 18. ^ Zug, George R. (2013). Reptiles and Amphibians of the Pacific Islands: A
     Comprehensive Guide. University of California Press.
 19. ^ "Origin of Bermuda and its Caves". Ocean Explorer. U.S. NOAA. United
     States Department of Commerce. 2009. Archived from the original on March
     20, 2021. Retrieved September 10, 2021. Extending toward the ocean's
     surface are four northeast-to-southwest trending volcanic peaks, including
     the emergent Bermuda Pedestal and the submerged Challenger, Argus, and
     Bowditch seamounts (figure 1). The islands of Bermuda are located along the
     southeast margin of the largest peak, the Bermuda Pedestal.
 20. ^ Carlquist, Sherwin (2004). "The Biota of Long-Distance Dispersal: I.
     Principles of Dispersal and Evolution". In Lomolino, Mark V.; Sax, Dov F.;
     Brown, James H. (eds.). Foundations of Biogeography: Classic Papers with
     Commentaries. University of Chicago Press. p. 316. ISBN 0-226-49236-2.
     Archived from the original on April 18, 2016.
 21. ^ Marsh, B. D. (November 1, 1979). "Island Arc Development: Some
     Observations, Experiments, and Speculations". The Journal of Geology. 87
     (6): 687–713. Bibcode:1979JG.....87..687M. doi:10.1086/628460.
     ISSN 0022-1376. S2CID 129932810. Archived from the original on March 9,
     2022. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
 22. ^ Katili, John A. (April 1, 1975). "Volcanism and plate tectonics in the
     Indonesian island arcs". Tectonophysics. 26 (3): 165–188.
     Bibcode:1975Tectp..26..165K. doi:10.1016/0040-1951(75)90088-8.
     ISSN 0040-1951. Archived from the original on March 3, 2023. Retrieved
     August 23, 2022.
 23. ^ Huppert, Kimberly L.; Perron, J. Taylor; Royden, Leigh H. (January 3,
     2020). "Hotspot swells and the lifespan of volcanic ocean islands". Science
     Advances. 6 (1): eaaw6906. Bibcode:2020SciA....6.6906H.
     doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw6906. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 6938699. PMID 31911939.
 24. ^ Schlömer, Antje; Geissler, Wolfram H.; Jokat, Wilfried; Jegen, Marion
     (March 15, 2017). "Hunting for the Tristan mantle plume – An upper mantle
     tomography around the volcanic island of Tristan da Cunha". Earth and
     Planetary Science Letters. 462: 122–131. Bibcode:2017E&PSL.462..122S.
     doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2016.12.028. ISSN 0012-821X.
 25. ^ Claudino-Sales, Vanda (2019), "Surtsey, Iceland", Coastal World Heritage
     Sites, Coastal Research Library, vol. 28, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands,
     pp. 237–242, doi:10.1007/978-94-024-1528-5_35, ISBN 978-94-024-1526-1,
     S2CID 240206292, archived from the original on August 21, 2022, retrieved
     August 21, 2022
 26. ^ Woodroffe, Colin; Biribo, Naomi (January 1, 2011). "Atolls". In Hopley,
     D. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs: structure, form and process.
     The Netherlands: Springer. pp. 51–71. Archived from the original on October
     25, 2020. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
 27. ^ a b Austrian Academy of Sciences (2002). "The Tropical Islands of the
     Indian and Pacific Oceans". Geographie. Austriaca.
     doi:10.1553/3-7001-2738-3.
 28. ^ Upton, B. G. J. (1982), Nairn, Alan E. M.; Stehli, Francis G. (eds.),
     "Oceanic Islands", The Ocean Basins and Margins, Boston, MA: Springer US,
     pp. 585–648, doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-8038-6_13, ISBN 978-1-4615-8040-9,
     archived from the original on August 21, 2022, retrieved August 21, 2022
 29. ^ Arnberger, Hertha, Erik (2011). The Tropical Islands of the Indian and
     Pacific Oceans. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.
     ISBN 978-3-7001-2738-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors
     list (link)
 30. ^ Baldacchino, Godfrey (2007). Bridging islands: the impact of fixed links.
     Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island: Acorn Press. ISBN 978-1-894838-24-5.
     OCLC 70884504.
 31. ^ a b Hayward, Philip (April 28, 2016). "Introduction: Towards an Expanded
     Concept of Island Studies" (PDF). Shima: The International Journal of
     Research into Island Cultures. 10 (1). doi:10.21463/shima.10.1.03. Archived
     (PDF) from the original on February 4, 2022. Retrieved August 21, 2022.
 32. ^ Gammon, Katherine (August 6, 2012). "Building Artificial Islands That
     Rise With the Sea". Popular Science. Archived from the original on June 5,
     2016. Retrieved June 28, 2016.
 33. ^ Mirasola, Christopher (July 15, 2015). "What Makes an Island? Land
     Reclamation and the South China Sea Arbitration". Asia Maritime
     Transparency Initiative. Archived from the original on May 27, 2016.
     Retrieved June 28, 2016.
 34. ^ "Conception of development of the artificial lands of Vasilievsky
     island". top-mark.biz. Archived from the original on September 25, 2016.
     Retrieved June 28, 2016.
 35. ^ United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 13. Archived
     from the original on September 2, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2017.
 36. ^ a b "Largest And Highest Islands Of The World". WorldAtlas. May 18, 2021.
     Archived from the original on June 11, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 37. ^ Wolchover, Natalie (January 24, 2012). "World's Largest
     Island-in-a-lake-on-an-island-in-a-lake-on-an-island Seen on Google Earth".
     livescience.com. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved
     August 20, 2022.
 38. ^ "Bananal Island". Encyclopædia Britannica (Online ed.). Archived from the
     original on September 3, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 39. ^ "Fraser Island". Government of Australia. May 18, 2008. Archived from the
     original on May 18, 2008. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 40. ^ Trout, Michael (October 24, 2018). "Netherlands Is Home to the Largest
     Man-Made Island". TourismReview. Archived from the original on June 9,
     2020. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 41. ^ "Devon Island: The Largest Uninhabited Island on Earth". The Basement
     Geographer. March 4, 2016. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016.
     Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 42. ^ "Population growth 'good for Papua'". The Jakarta Post. August 24, 2010.
     Archived from the original on August 24, 2010. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
 43. ^ "Volcanology Highlights". Global Volcanism Program. June 3, 2012.
     Archived from the original on June 3, 2012. Retrieved August 20, 2022.


EXTERNAL LINKS[EDIT]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Island (category)
Wikiquote has quotations related to Islands.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Island".
 * Definition of island from United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
 * Listing of islands Archived February 14, 2008, at the Wayback Machine from
   United Nations Island Directory.


 * v
 * t
 * e

Coastal geography
Landforms
 * Anchialine pool
 * Archipelago
 * Atoll
 * Avulsion
 * Ayre
 * Barrier island
 * Bay
 * Bight
 * Bodden
 * Brackish marsh
 * Cape
 * Channel
 * Cliff
 * Coast
 * Coastal plain
 * Coastal waterfall
 * Continental margin
 * Continental shelf
 * Coral reef
 * Cove
 * Dune
   * cliff-top
 * Estuary
 * Firth
 * Fjard
 * Fjord
 * Freshwater marsh
 * Fundus
 * Gat
 * Geo
 * Gulf
 * Gut
 * Hapua
 * Headland
 * Inlet
 * Intertidal wetland
 * Island
 * Islet
 * Isthmus
 * Lagoon
 * Machair
 * Mudflat
 * Natural arch
 * Peninsula
 * Reef
 * Ria
 * Salt marsh
 * Shoal
 * Shore
 * Skerry
 * Sound
 * Spit
 * Stack
 * Strait
 * Strand plain
 * Submarine canyon
 * Tidal island
 * Tidal marsh
 * Tide pool
 * Tied island
 * Tombolo
 * Waituna
 * Windwatt




Beaches
 * Beach cusps
 * Beach evolution
 * Coastal morphodynamics
 * Beach ridge
 * Beachrock
 * Beaches in estuaries and bays
 * Pocket beach
 * Raised beach
 * Recession
 * Shell beach
 * Shingle beach
 * Storm beach
 * Wash margin

River mouths
 * Debouch
 * River delta
   * mega
   * regressive
 * Mouth bar
   * baymouth

Processes
 * Blowhole
 * Cliffed coast
 * Coastal biogeomorphology
 * Coastal erosion
 * Concordant coastline
 * Current
 * Cuspate foreland
 * Discordant coastline
 * Emergent coastline
 * Feeder bluff
 * Fetch
 * Flat coast
 * Graded shoreline
 * Ingression coast
 * Large-scale coastal behaviour
 * Longshore drift
 * Marine regression
 * Marine transgression
 * Raised shoreline
 * Rip current
 * Rocky shore
 * Sea cave
 * Sea foam
 * Shoal (Peresyp)
 * Steep coast
 * Submergent coastline
 * Surf break
 * Surf zone
 * Surge channel
 * Swash
 * Undertow
 * Volcanic arc
 * Wave-cut platform
 * Wave shoaling
 * Wind wave
 * Wrack zone

Management
 * Accretion
 * Coastal management
 * Integrated coastal zone management
 * Submersion

Related
 * Bulkhead line
 * Coastal engineering
 * Grain size
   * boulder
   * clay
   * cobble
   * granule
   * gravel
   * pebble
   * sand
   * shingle
   * silt
 * Intertidal zone
 * Littoral zone
 * Physical oceanography
 * River plume
 * Region of freshwater influence

 * Category



Authority control databases: National
 * France
 * BnF data
 * Germany
 * Israel
 * United States
 * Japan
 * Czech Republic