Coincidentally while I was at a coast during Bengal Darshan, I came across some interesting...
Coincidentally while I was at a coast during Bengal Darshan, I came across some interesting news—the coastline of West Bengal has quadrupled in length!
Coincidentally while I was at a coast during Bengal Darshan, I came across some interesting news—the coastline of West Bengal has quadrupled in length!
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Coincidentally while I was at a coast during Bengal Darshan, I came across some interesting news—the coastline of West Bengal has quadrupled in length! According to the latest MHA report, West Bengal’s coastline has increased from 157 km to an astonishing 721 km.
And India's coastline increased by 47%!
But how can a coastline grow in length? Is this due to climate change? The recognition of additional territory? Or perhaps some other factor?
It turns out, the dramatic increase is not due to physical changes but rather a recent update in the methodology used to calculate the coastline's length.
But why should a change in methodology affect the measurement of a coastline?
The answer lies in the "Coastline Paradox". Measuring a coastline it turns out, is a complicated matter and can have varying results depending on the method and tools used.
In 1951, Lewis Fry Richardson, while studying the link between border lengths and war probability, noticed a discrepancy: Portugal reported its border with Spain as 987 km, while Spain measured it as 1,214 km. This led to the "coastline problem," a mathematical issue in measuring irregular boundaries. Richardson discovered the "Richardson effect," where measured length increases as the measurement scale decreases—shorter rulers yield longer borders, explaining the differing measurements.
And if the measurement scale tends to zero, the coastline length tends to infinity.
The coastline paradox arises because the length of a coastline (or any irregular boundary) depends on the scale or resolution of the measurement. The paradox is rooted in the fractal-like nature of coastlines, where smaller and smaller features become visible as the measurement scale decreases.
While mathematically, the length of a coastline could range from zero to infinity, for UPSC purposes, you only need to remember 11,098 km (~11,100 km)!
Want to explore more of Bengal's Coasts - Check comment section for the official WB Tourism
Pic: Somewhere near Bengal's beautiful coast :)