How many U.S. states have a coastline on the Pacific Ocean?
Guess before you scroll — the answer is below
The answer
5 states
Five states touch the Pacific: California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. Alaska has by far the longest Pacific coastline of any state once its islands and inlets are counted — longer than the other four combined.
How to get close to this number
Trace the coast. Three states run up the contiguous west coast, and two more sit outside the contiguous landmass. Five is the total, and forgetting the non-contiguous two is the same error as in the time-zone question on this site.
The coastline detail is the counterintuitive one: one state has a longer Pacific coastline than the other four combined. Coastline length depends on how fractal a shore is, and a state made of islands, fjords and inlets accumulates enormous length within a modest span of latitude.
That is worth generalising, because coastline measurement is famously scale-dependent — measure with a shorter ruler and you get a longer coast. Published coastline figures therefore vary enormously between sources depending on resolution, and any ranking of coastlines is really a ranking of how the measurement was done.
Where this number comes from
| Source | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
|---|---|
| Figure refers to | 2023 |
| Last checked | |
| Unit | states |
Numbers move. If this one has drifted from its source, let us know.
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