Peninsula

A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland. It is connected to the mainland on only one side and is surrounded by water on the other sides.

Peninsulas can be found on every continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula.

The word "peninsular" also has other meanings. It can refer to the Peninsulares, a group of people in Spanish history. For other uses of the word, see Peninsula (disambiguation).

Etymology

The word peninsula comes from the Latin word paeninsula. That word is made from two parts: paene, meaning "almost," and insula, meaning "island."

The word came into English in the 1500s.

Definitions

A peninsula is usually described as a piece of land that is surrounded by water on most sides.

A peninsula may be surrounded by more than one body of water, and that water does not have to be an ocean or a sea. Land on a very tight river bend, or between two rivers, is sometimes called a peninsula. One example is the New Barbadoes Neck in New Jersey, in the United States. A peninsula may connect to the mainland through an isthmus. For example, the Isthmus of Corinth joins the Peloponnese peninsula to Central Greece.

Formation and types

Peninsulas can form in several ways. These include continental drift, glacial erosion, glacial meltwater, glacial deposition, marine sediment, marine transgressions, volcanoes, divergent boundaries, and river sedimentation. Often, more than one factor helps shape a peninsula. For example, continental drift, marine sediment, and marine transgressions all helped form Florida. Glaciers can create peninsulas such as the Antarctic Peninsula or Cape Cod. They do this through erosion, meltwater, or deposition. When erosion formed a peninsula, softer rock wore away faster than harder rock. This created a basin. This happened in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Melting glaciers can also leave moraines behind. These block meltwater and form bodies of water that surround the land. When deposition formed a peninsula, it was made of sedimentary rock from a large amount of glacial drift. Cape Cod formed this way about 23,000 years ago.

Volcanoes can form peninsulas when magma erupts near water, as with the Alaskan Peninsula. This is especially common when the water is shallow. Marine sediment can also form peninsulas through the creation of limestone. In plate tectonics, a divergent boundary can form a rift peninsula, such as the Arabian Peninsula. A convergent boundary can form peninsulas like Gibraltar or the Indian subcontinent. Rivers can also form peninsulas through sedimentation. When a river carrying sediment flows into an ocean, the sediment builds up and forms a delta peninsula. Marine transgressions, or changes in sea level, can form peninsulas and also change existing ones. For example, a peninsula can become an island when water levels are high. Wet weather can make peninsulas look smaller, and dry weather can make them look larger. Sea level rise from global warming will permanently shrink some peninsulas over time.

Uses

Peninsulas have been shelters for early humans and Neanderthals. This landform is helpful because it gives hunters access to both land animals and sea animals. Peninsulas can also help show where a country's borders are. Long ago, peninsulas were important for trade because ships could reach the water through a narrow strip of land called an isthmus. The Malay Peninsula sits where the Indian Ocean and the China Seas meet, and it played an important role in trade between east and west.

List of the largest peninsulas in the world

Further information: List of peninsulas

Rank	Peninsula	Continent	Subregion	Part of	Area		Nation(s)	Source
					(km2)	(sq mi)
1	Arabian Peninsula	Asia	West Asia	Arabia	3,100,000	1,200,000	Iraq (southern region) Jordan (southern region) Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates Yemen
2	Indochinese Peninsula		Southeast Asia	Mainland Southeast Asia	2,000,000	770,000	Cambodia Laos Malaysia (western region) Myanmar Thailand Vietnam
3	Deccan Peninsula		South Asia	Indian Subcontinent	1,900,000	800,000	India (southern region)
4	Somali Peninsula	Africa	East Africa	Horn of Africa	1,882,757	726,936	Ethiopia Somalia Somaliland
5	Labrador Peninsula	North America	Northern America	–	1,400,000	540,000	Canada (eastern region)
6	Anatolian Peninsula	Asia	West Asia	Asia Minor	755,688	291,773	Turkey (Asian part)
7	Scandinavian Peninsula	Europe	Northern Europe	Fennoscandia	750,000	290,000	Finland (northern region) Norway Sweden
8	Balkan Peninsula	Europe	Southern Europe	South-eastern Europe	666,700	257,400	Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia (southern mainland) Greece (mainland) Kosovo Montenegro North Macedonia Romania (coastal region) Serbia (central region) Slovenia (south-western region) Turkey (European part)
9	Iberian Peninsula			South-western Europe	583,256	225,196	Andorra France (French Cerdagne) Gibraltar (United Kingdom) Portugal (mainland) Spain (mainland)
10	Antarctic Peninsula	Antarctica	West Antarctica	–	522,000	202,000	–
11	Taymyr Peninsula	Asia	North Asia	North Siberian Lowland	400,000	150,000	Russia (Krasnoyarsk Krai)
12	Kamchatka Peninsula			Russian Far East	370,000	140,000	Russia (Kamchatka Krai)