Miles 101

SHORELINE MILES, VS. INTERNATIONAL BORDER MILES
The Great Lakes Basin’s entries.

Source: The U.S. Department of Commerce’s, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, dated 1975, titled, “The Coastline of the United States”. NOAA/PA, 71046, (REV 1975) note: this publication, from 1975, is still the current authority. Plus, Wikipedia & Google.

Note: while other sources do state slightly different lengths. due to erosion, etc, the NOAA/PA is still the authority, therefore this document’s data was chosen for our measurements.

Coastal Miles, example

• *** Lake Michigan’s 1,640 coastal miles (NOT the State of Michigan’s) are made up of the LAKES coastline onto the West coast of Michigan (which appears to be approx. half) plus….Indiana, Illinois, & Wisconsin’s coastal lengths on the lake. Note!- it is the lakes coastline, not just any one states coastline.

Shoreline Miles

• Consider the difference between Lake Michigan’s 1,640 COASTAL miles, as compared to the State of Michigan’s SHORELINE miles- which are, 3.288. note: Michigan’s shoreline miles are the most shoreline miles of any contiguous state; but 2nd to Alaska in U.S.A

International Boundary Miles

• Still again, neither of the above mentioned water miles are part of the International Boundary Line’s miles. Approximately 1,000 boundary miles run thru most of the Great Lakes Basin’s lakes & rivers, from Minnesota to Niagara Falls. They help separate the worlds 2nd & 3rd largest countries. (Canada = 2nd & U.S. 3rd – Google: Largest countries in the world in square miles) This is the world’s longest international boundary, with its 5,525 mile length.