List of peninsulas

A peninsula (Latin: paeninsula from paene "almost" and insula "island") is a piece of land that is bordered mostly by water but connected to mainland.[1][2][3][4] The surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily named as such. A peninsula can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, or spit.[5] A point is generally considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape.[6] In English, the plural of peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulae. A river which courses through a very tight meander is also sometimes said to form a "peninsula" within the (almost closed) loop of water.

Presented below is a list of peninsulas.

Africa

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The Horn of Africa also known as the Somali peninsula

Macaronesia

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North Africa

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Somali Peninsula

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The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in Northeast Africa that juts into the Guardafui Channel, and is the easternmost projection of the African continent. It denotes the region containing the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

West Africa

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Other peninsulas in Africa

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Antarctica

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Asia

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Central Asia

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Kazakhstan

Eastern Asia

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China[7]

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Hong Kong

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Japan

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Hokkaido
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Honshū
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Kyūshū
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Korea

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Korean Peninsula

The whole landmass encompassing North and South Korea is a peninsula, surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the east and south, and the Yellow Sea to the west and south, with the Korea Strait connecting them.

Macau

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Taiwan

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Northern Asia

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The Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East

South-eastern Asia

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Indochina

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Indonesia

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Malaysia

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Philippines

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Thailand

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  • Sathing Phra Peninsula

Singapore

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Vietnam

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Southern Asia

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South India (Peninsular India)

The Deccan Peninsula is a dominant geographical feature of the Indian Subcontinent.

Other peninsulas on the Indian Subcontinent include:

Western Asia

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Arabia

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Eastern Mediterranean

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Turkey

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Map of the Anatolian Peninsula, the Asian part of Turkey

Europe

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Europe is sometimes considered to be a large peninsula extending off Eurasia.[8] As such, it is one of the largest peninsulas in the world and the only one to have the status as a full continent, largely as a matter of convention rather than science. It is composed of many smaller peninsulas, the four main and largest component peninsulas being the Scandinavian, Iberian, Balkan, and Apennine peninsulas.

Balkan Peninsula

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The assumed Balkan Peninsula, as defined by the SočaVipavaKrkaSavaDanube border.

The Balkans is a region which natural borders do not coincide with the technical definition of a peninsula hence modern geographers reject the idea of a Balkan Peninsula. It would include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and the European part of Turkey.

France

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Iberian Peninsula

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Satellite view of the Iberian Peninsula

Encompassing continental Portugal and Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar (British Overseas Territory), and a small amount of Southern France, the Iberian Peninsula is a dominant geographical feature of Iberia.

Other peninsulas in Iberia include:

Ireland

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Italy

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Satellite view of the Apennine Peninsula

The Apennine Peninsula is the dominant geographical feature of Italy.

Other peninsulas in Italy include:

Adriatic Sea
Ionian Sea
Ligurian Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea

Malta

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Russia

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Scandinavia

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Fennoscandia including the Scandinavian Peninsula and Kola Peninsula

Norway

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Sweden

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Denmark

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Finland

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Estonia

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Turkey

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Ukraine

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United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies

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England

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England's South West Peninsula at the top and France's Brittany Peninsula at the bottom, with the English Channel between

Northern Ireland

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Scotland

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Wales

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Channel Islands

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Isle of Man

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Other peninsulas in Europe

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A small peninsula in Croatia
Au Peninsula, Lake Zürich, Switzerland

North America

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Belize

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Canada

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British Columbia

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New Brunswick

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Newfoundland and Labrador

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Northwest Territories

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Nova Scotia

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Nunavut

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Baffin Island
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Ontario

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Quebec

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Caribbean

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Haiti

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Dominican Republic

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Puerto Rico

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Cuba

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Saint Lucia

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Costa Rica

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Greenland

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Mexico

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The Yucatán Peninsula

Panama

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United States

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Alaska

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California

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Florida

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The Floridian Peninsula, shown by a NASA satellite image

Florida is a well-known example of a large peninsula, with its land area divided between the larger Florida peninsula and the smaller Florida Panhandle on the north and west. It has several smaller peninsulas within it:

Maryland

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Mid-Atlantic shoreline showing, from the upper right, the Cape May Peninsula of New Jersey, Delaware Bay, the Delmarva Peninsula, and Chesapeake Bay. Also visible are the peninsulas of Maryland and Virginia along the Chesapeake's shores.

Massachusetts

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Cape Cod, a peninsula of Massachusetts

Michigan

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The large Michigan Peninsulas from space, showing both the Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula

New Jersey

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New York

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Long Island, New York, with its North and South Forks
  • Irondequoit, NY (geographical headland)

Oregon

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Utah

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  • Antelope Island, Utah, becomes a peninsula when waters are low, on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake
  • Promontory Peninsula, on the north eastern shore of the Great Salt Lake
  • Stansbury Peninsula becomes an island when waters are high, on the south shore of the Great Salt Lake

Vermont

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  • Alburgh, Vermont, is on the Alburgh Tongue, a peninsula extending from Quebec, Canada into Lake Champlain

Virginia

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Washington

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Wisconsin

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Other states

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Oceania

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Australia

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Satellite image of Wilsons Promontory, Victoria
Palm Beach, Sydney, New South Wales
Torndirrup Peninsula, Western Australia

New Zealand

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North Island

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South Island

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NASA satellite photo of the Otago Peninsula and Otago Harbour. The city of Dunedin is located at the isthmus at lower left.

Outlying Islands

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Papua New Guinea

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Hawaii

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South America

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Satellite images of the Southern Cone extending off South America month by month

Southern Cone

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The Southern Cone, like Europe, is sometimes considered to be a large peninsula.[9] Geographically, the peninsula encompasses most of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil and the southernmost portion of Paraguay, which makes it one of the largest peninsulas in the world. Like the Indian Peninsula, the Southern Cone is sometimes considered to be a subcontinent.[10]

Other peninsulas in South America

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Argentina

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Brazil

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Chile

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Colombia

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Peru

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Uruguay

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Venezuela

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Fictional peninsulas

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Map of Brobdingnag (original map, Pt II, Gulliver's Travels

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Word Histories and Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2004. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-547-35027-1. OCLC 55746553.
  2. ^ "pen·in·su·la". American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  3. ^ "Definition of peninsula". Cambridge Dictionaries Online. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  4. ^ "Definition of peninsula". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  5. ^ "List of peninsulas". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2016.
  6. ^ "Fourah Point / Fourah Point, Northern, Sierra Leone, Africa". travelingluck.com.
  7. ^ "中国一共有几个半岛-爱问知识人". iask.sina.com.cn. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  8. ^ National Geographic, ed. (1996). "Peninsula". Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  9. ^ Podetti, J. Ramiro (2011). "La visión geopolítica de Artigas": 3. Retrieved 10 November 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. ^ Baldwin, James A. (2014), "Continents", in R.W. McColl (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Geography, Infobase Publishing, p. 215, ISBN 978-0-8160-7229-3
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  • The dictionary definition of peninsula at Wiktionary
  • Media related to Peninsulas at Wikimedia Commons