Which country has the longest coastline in the world?

Canada's answer comes from its north rather than its familiar Atlantic and Pacific edges. The Arctic Archipelago north of the mainland is a maze of large islands, including Baffin, Victoria and Ellesmere, separated by channels and deeply notched by fjords and bays, and every one of those shorelines counts. Add the intricate coasts of Labrador, Newfoundland, the Gulf of St Lawrence and the countless islands of British Columbia, and the total dwarfs every other country. There is a mathematical wrinkle worth knowing: coastline length depends on the scale of the measurement, because a finer ruler picks up more inlets and headlands, a problem known as the coastline paradox. That means absolute figures differ between sources. What does not change is the ranking, because Canada's shore is so much more fragmented and so much longer than its rivals' that no reasonable method puts another country first.

The coastline paradox means measured shoreline length grows without limit as the measuring unit shrinks, so published totals vary widely.