Australian Government, Geoscience Australia

Updated: 07 August 2003

Coastline Lengths

Australia is the sixth largest country in the world, and is the only one of the top six that is completely surrounded by water. The mainland and Tasmania are also surrounded by many thousands of small fringing islands and numerous larger ones. Nearly forty percent of the total coastline length comprises island coastlines. As an island nation, coastlines play an important role in defining national, State and Territory boundaries


STATE/TERRITORY (kilometres)
MAINLAND LENGTH ISLAND LENGTH TOTAL LENGTH
Western Australia 12 889 7 892 20 781
Queensland 6 973 6 374 13 347
Northern Territory 5 437 5 516 10 953
South Australia 3 816 1 251 5 067
Tasmania 2 833 2 049 4 882
Victoria 1 868 644 2 512
New South Wales 2 007 130 2 137
Jervis Bay Territory 54 3 57
AUSTRALIA 35 877 23 859 59 736


Source: COAST 100K Coastline and State Borders database, 1993.
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