A long, narrow, steep-sided coastal inlet extending far inland and often reaching very great depths. Most are drowned valleys formed by glacial erosion, with subsequent sea-level rise after their retreat. The best-known fjords are in Norway and E Greenland.
Many fjords are called "canals", "inlets" and "sounds" - for example the Hood Canal, Burrard Inlet and the Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest.Ancillary features
Coral reefs
Skerries
Locations
West coast of Europe
Faroe Islands Norway IcelandWest coast of New Zealand
Fiordland, in the southwest of the South IslandWest coast of North America
British Columbia, Canada down to Puget Sound The south and west coasts of Alaska in the United StatesWest coast of South America
Southern ChileOther glaciated regions
Other regions have fjords, but many of these are less pronounced due to more limited exposure to westerly winds and less pronounced relief. Areas include:
Europe Ireland (Ireland's only fjord is in Killary Harbour near Leenane, County Galway, on the west coast) Scotland (where called firths, the Scots language cognate of fjord; lochs or sea lochs) Sweden North America Canada: The south and west coasts of Newfoundland The Labrador coast The last 100 km of Quebec's Saguenay River the Arctic Archipelago United States Somes Sound, Maine Greenland Arctic Arctic islands Antarctica particularly the Antarctic Peninsula Sub-antarctic islandsExtreme fjords
The longest fjords in the world are:
Scoresby Sund in Greenland - 350 km (220 mi) Sognefjord in Norway - 203 km (126 mi) Hardangerfjord in Norway - 179 km (111 mi)Deep fjords include:
Skelton Inlet in Antarctica - 1,933 m (6,342 ft) Sognefjord in Norway - ~1,308 m (4,291 ft) (the mountains then rise to up to 1,000 m) Messier Channel in Chile, South America - 1,288 m (4,226 ft)Even deeper is the Vanderford Valley (2,287 m or 7,503 ft), carved by the Antarctica's Vanderford Glacier.
Scandinavian usage
Use of the word fjord (including the eastern Scandinavian form fjärd) is more general in the Scandinavian languages than in English. In Norway the usage is closest to the Old Norse, with fjord used for both a firth and for a long, narrow inlet.
False fjords
The differences in usage between the English and the Scandinavian languages have contributed to confusion in the use of the term fjord. Bodies of water which are clearly fjords in Scandinavian languages are not considered fjords in English; similarly bodies of water which would clearly not be fjords in the Scandinavian sense have been named or suggested to be fjords.
The Gulf of Kotor in Montenegro has been suggested by some to be a fjord, but is in fact a drowned river canyon or ria. Similarly the Lim bay in Istria, Croatia, is sometimes called "Lim fjord" although it is not actually a fjord carved by glacial erosion but instead a ria dug by the river Pazinčica.
Limfjord in the north of Denmark is a fjord in the Scandinavian sense, but is not a fjord in the English sense.
The fjords in Finnmark (Norway), which are fjords in the Scandinavian sense of the term, are considered by some to be false fjords. Although glacially formed, most Finnmark fjords lack the classic hallmark steep-sided valleys of the more southerly Norwegian fjords since the glacial pack was deep enough to cover even the high grounds when they were formed. Western Brook Pond, in Newfoundland's Gros Morne National Park, is also often described as a fjord, but is actually a freshwater lake cut off from the sea, so is not a fjord in the English sense of the term.
Fjords in culture and history
Fjord horse
There is an ancient breed of horse from the western Norway fjord regions called the fjord horse.
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