Norway is where most people picture a fjord, and Norway does not hold this record: the Sognefjord, its longest, places fifth. The list runs from 420 km down to 108 km across five countries, and two rules decide it. The first is how a fjord is measured, along its centreline from the head of its innermost arm out to a line drawn across its mouth, which is the convention Norway's own national encyclopedia publishes and the one applied here worldwide. That rule lets a continuous chain of connected inlets count as one fjord, which is why an Ellesmere Island system leads and Greenland's Scoresby Sund, the fjord most often called the world's longest, sits fourth. The second rule is that a fjord needs a head. Matochkin Shar and Alaska's Behm Canal are open at both ends, so neither qualifies, and the Oslofjord is a rift valley rather than a glacier-carved trough at all.
15 Longest Fjords in the World (2026)
The record The longest fjord in the world is Nansen Sound–Greely Fiord–Tanquary Fiord, in Canada — 420 km (261 mi), length. Source: Wikipedia (Fjord, longest-fjords table) citing Ford and Hattersley-Smith, On the Oceanography of the Nansen Sound Fiord System, Arctic 18(3):159, 1965. Verified .
Longest Fjords in the World The Ranking at a Glance
Fun Facts About the World’s Longest Fjords
- Norway’s most famous fjord is not a fjord at all. The Oslofjord is a drowned rift valley rather than a glacier-carved trough, and Norway’s own national encyclopedia states plainly that it is not a fjord in the geological sense. It is called one because the Norwegian word covers a much wider range of inlets than the geological term does.
- A fjord is shallowest at its mouth, not its head. Sognefjord is 1,308 m deep inside, but the seabed rises to a sill only about 100 m below the surface near the entrance, left where the glacier spread out and lost its cutting power. That sill is the signature every true fjord carries.
- One fjord system covers more ground than Belgium. The branching arms of Scoresby Sund spread across roughly 38,000 km² of eastern Greenland, and the deepest of them drop to about 1,450 m, far below the floor of the main channel they open off.
- The world’s northernmost pine forest grows on a fjord shore. Stabbursdalen, on the western side of Porsangerfjord, protects a stand of low, gnarled Scots pine growing far beyond the usual treeline, with some trees around 500 years old.
- A village on this list has no roads and no cars. Caleta Tortel, near the mouth of the Baker River on Baker Channel, is connected entirely by several kilometres of raised walkways built from Guaitecas cypress, because there is no flat ground to lay a street on.
- The head of a High Arctic fjord can be a desert. The inner reaches of Wijdefjorden are the driest corner of Svalbard, wrung out by low precipitation and a wind-tunnel effect down the fjord’s long, straight axis, and they carry a steppe vegetation not known anywhere else in the European Arctic.
1. Nansen Sound–Greely Fiord–Tanquary Fiord
At 420 km, this chain of connected inlets on Ellesmere Island is the longest continuous fjord run measured anywhere on Earth. It begins where Nansen Sound meets the Arctic Ocean between Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands, bends east into Greely Fiord, and finally narrows into Tanquary Fiord, which reaches a further 48 km inland to the north-west. The figure comes from a 1965 oceanographic survey published in the journal Arctic, whose authors treated the three waterways as a single fiord system rather than as separate inlets, and that reading is what puts it at the top of this list.
There is no road here and no permanent settlement. Tanquary Fiord, the innermost arm, lies inside Quttinirpaaq National Park at the far northern end of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, where a seasonal camp and gravel airstrip serve as the jumping-off point for hikers and researchers heading into the interior. Sea ice covers much of the system for most of the year, and the surrounding land is polar desert, so the walls rise bare and rubbly rather than green. Fewer people reach the head of this fjord in a season than walk a popular Norwegian trail in a morning.
2. Chatham Strait–Lynn Canal
At 403 km, the run north from the Gulf of Alaska up Chatham Strait and into Lynn Canal is the longest fjord in the United States and the second longest anywhere. Chatham Strait alone accounts for about 241 km, threading between Admiralty Island to the east and Chichagof and Baranof islands to the west, before the waterway turns north into Lynn Canal for a further 145 km to its head. That Lynn Canal is a genuine ice-carved fjord rather than an ordinary channel was argued in a 1924 paper in the Geographical Review, which remains the reference the length figure is traced to.
This is the spine of Alaska's Inside Passage, so it is also the most travelled fjord on the list by a wide margin. State ferries and cruise ships run its length past walls that climb straight out of the water, with glaciers hanging in the side valleys above. Skagway sits near the head, at the point where the Klondike stampeders came ashore to start the climb over the coastal mountains, and the fjord is still the reason the town exists. Humpback whales and sea lions work the strait through the summer.
3. Admiralty Inlet
At 370 km, Admiralty Inlet cuts deep into the north-west coast of Baffin Island, running between the Brodeur and Borden peninsulas before ending at Jungersen Bay. It is between 3 and 32 km wide, with a shoreline that rises abruptly 300 to 460 m out of the water, and it is described by Encyclopaedia Britannica as one of the world's largest fjords. It is also the entry most often missing from published rankings of the longest, which tend to leap straight from Alaska to Greenland and skip the Canadian Arctic entirely.
Arctic Bay is the only permanent settlement on the inlet, sitting on the Uluksan Peninsula partway down the eastern shore, with Sirmilik National Park covering the land to the north-east. The inlet is one of the great summering grounds for narwhal, which gather here in numbers once the floe edge breaks up, and the same ice edge draws polar bears and seals. Several smaller waterways branch off along its length, among them Strathcona Sound, Adams Sound and Moffet Inlet, so the system is far larger than the single line on a map suggests.
4. Scoresby Sund
At 350 km, Scoresby Sund on Greenland's east coast is the fjord most sources reach for when asked which is the world's longest, and on a strict reading of a single named fjord they are right. Known in Greenlandic as Kangertittivaq, it has a branching, tree-like shape: a main body about 110 km long that opens into a network of arms covering roughly 38,000 km². The main basin runs 400 to 600 m deep, but some of the inner arms drop to about 1,450 m, which puts them among the deepest water anywhere inside a fjord.
Ittoqqortoormiit sits near the mouth and is one of the most isolated inhabited places in the Arctic, with a few hundred residents and no road to anywhere else. Inland, Nordvestfjord runs back towards the ice sheet and gives the sound its most precisely measured figure: 313 km from the head of that arm, across the open water of Hall Bredning, to the mouth of the sound. Icebergs calved from the inland ice ground themselves in the shallows and stay for years.
5. Sognefjord
At 205 km, the Sognefjord is the longest and deepest fjord in Norway and the longest in mainland Europe, reaching from the open coast north of Bergen inland to the village of Skjolden. It is more than 1,000 m deep for roughly 100 km of that run, bottoming out at 1,308 m, and its floor is buried under some 200 m of sediment, so the bedrock beneath lies about 1,500 m below the sea. Near the mouth the seabed rises sharply to a sill only about 100 m down, the classic fjord shape left where the glacier spread out and lost its cutting power.
The main channel averages under 5 km across and is walled by mountains that rise 1,500 m and more, with the Hurrungane peaks reaching about 2,400 m behind the inner arms. The narrowest and most photographed of its branches, the Nærøyfjord, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the fjord as a whole threads through ten municipalities, so almost every stop along it has a village, a ferry quay or a stave church attached.
6. Independence Fjord
At 200 km long and as much as 30 km wide, Independence Fjord is the northernmost entry on this list by a wide margin, with its mouth opening into the Wandel Sea of the Arctic Ocean at about 82 degrees north. That is closer to the pole than any settlement on Earth, and the fjord spends most of the year locked under sea ice. Its scale is hard to read from the air, because the surrounding land is unvegetated rock and the ice surface runs continuously from the fjord onto the tundra without an obvious shoreline.
The fjord lies inside Northeast Greenland National Park, the largest protected area on the planet, which covers a stretch of coast bigger than most countries and has no permanent population at all. Peary Land rises to the north of it, one of the few parts of Greenland never covered by the modern ice sheet, and the fjord was mapped during the American and Danish expeditions that pushed along this coast at the turn of the twentieth century.
7. Kangerlussuaq Fjord
At 190 km, Kangerlussuaq Fjord is the longest fjord in western Greenland, running south-west from the estuary of the Qinnguata Kuussua river out into the Davis Strait. It is narrow for its length, between 1.5 and 8 km wide for most of the way, which makes it feel more like a flooded canyon than an arm of the sea. It shares seventh place with the Kejser Franz Joseph Fjord, which is quoted at the same 190 km; Kangerlussuaq is placed first of the two because its figure comes from Encyclopaedia Britannica rather than an uncited reference table.
Unusually for a fjord this far north, it is navigable along its entire length, and both cruise ships and Royal Greenland supply vessels work their way up it to the port at Kangerlussuaq. The settlement at its head is the main air gateway to Greenland, built around a long runway inherited from a wartime airbase, so a great many visitors to the country have travelled this fjord without registering that they were on one. The inland ice sheet begins only a short drive beyond the head.
8. Kejser Franz Joseph Fjord
At 190 km on the figure used here, the Kejser Franz Joseph Fjord in north-east Greenland is co-ranked with Kangerlussuaq Fjord, and it is a good illustration of how much a fjord's length depends on where you decide it stops. Aarhus University's Arctic Research Centre puts it nearer 200 km, measured from the Nordenskiöld Gletscher at its head out to Foster Bugt on the coast, while the encyclopaedic figure is the slightly shorter 190 km. Either way the main channel is only part of the story.
Counting its branches, the system runs to almost 500 km. Dusén Fjord, Nordfjord, Moskusoksefjord, Geologfjord, Antarctic Sund, Isfjord and Kjerulf Fjord all open off it, threading between mountains of banded sandstone that show red and orange in low sun. The whole thing sits inside Northeast Greenland National Park, and the coastline here carries the scattered huts of the Sirius dog-sledge patrol along with musk oxen, which is what the name Moskusoksefjord refers to.
9. Hardangerfjord
At 179 km, the Hardangerfjord is Norway's second-longest fjord, reaching inland from the coast south of Bergen towards the western edge of the Hardangervidda plateau. It is a gentler landscape than the Sognefjord to the north, with lower and more rounded shoulders along much of its length and a string of small farming villages on the shore, and it splits into several long inner arms including the Sørfjorden, which runs south towards Odda.
This is Norway's orchard country, and the sheltered slopes above the water carry apple, pear, plum and cherry trees that blossom through May, an event people plan trips around. The Folgefonna icecap sits on the peninsula between the fjord's arms, feeding meltwater into the fjord, and two of Norway's best-known walks start from the Hardanger shore: the shelf of rock at Trolltunga above Ringedalsvatnet, and the path to the tiered drop of Vøringsfossen in the Måbødalen valley.
10. Uummannaq Fjord
At 160 km, Uummannaq Fjord in north-western Greenland is the country's largest fjord system after Scoresby Sund. It is also far wider than most entries here, running 24 to 48 km across, and rather than a single channel it opens inland into a spread of smaller fjords that reach east until they meet the inland ice. It drains north-west into Baffin Bay, and its outer waters are studded with large islands that break the view into a series of separate basins.
The town of Uummannaq sits on one of those islands beneath a twin-peaked mountain, and the name, meaning heart-shaped, comes from that summit. Several of the glaciers at the fjord's inner ends are fast-moving outlets of the ice sheet, so the water carries icebergs year-round and freezes into a solid working surface each winter, when the sea ice becomes the road between settlements. Dog sledges are still used here for hunting and travel across it.
11. Trondheimsfjord
At 130 km, the Trondheimsfjord is Norway's third-longest, running inland from the Norwegian Sea past the city of Trondheim and on to the north-east. It is broader and shallower than the great western fjords, and its shores rise into low hills and farmland rather than cliffs, which makes it look less dramatic and explains why it is the most settled and worked fjord in the country. It stays ice-free the year round despite its latitude.
Trondheim sits on its southern shore, built where the Nidelva meets the fjord, with Nidaros Cathedral above the river as the medieval pilgrimage destination that made the city. The fortified islet of Munkholmen lies just offshore, and the fjord narrows repeatedly along its inner reaches into a chain of basins. Its combination of shelter and depth has kept it in use as a working waterway since the Viking age, and the broad agricultural districts along its banks are a large part of why the region became a centre of power in the first place.
12. Knight Inlet
At 125 km, Knight Inlet is one of the longest fjords on the British Columbia coast, cutting east from the Queen Charlotte Strait deep into the Coast Mountains. It averages only about 2.5 km wide, so the proportions are extreme: a narrow ribbon of green water with granite walls and hanging snowfields on either side, running back into country with no road access along almost its entire length.
At the head, the Klinaklini River comes down off the icefields and spreads into a broad tidal estuary of sedge flats and gravel bars. That estuary and the neighbouring Glendale Cove make this one of the best-known grizzly bear viewing areas in North America, with bears feeding on sedge in spring and on returning salmon in autumn, watched from platforms and small boats. Seals, eagles and, in the outer reaches, orca and humpbacks use the inlet too, and the whole fjord sits within the traditional territory of the Kwakwaka'wakw.
13. Porsangerfjord
At 123 km, the Porsangerfjord reaches south from the Barents Sea into Finnmark, making it one of the longest fjords in northern Norway and one of the largest by area. It is a different animal from the narrow western fjords: broad, open to the Arctic Ocean at its mouth, and shallow enough in places that the water takes on a pale turquoise cast over sand. Because it is so exposed, the outer fjord behaves more like open sea than sheltered water.
Stabbursdalen National Park lies along its western shore and protects what is generally described as the world's most northerly pine forest, a stand of Scots pine growing far beyond the usual treeline. The fjord is important bird country, with wading flocks on the flats at Stabbursnes, and it lies in the heart of Sámi Norway, where reindeer are still moved to the coast for the summer grazing. King crab has become the fjord's best-known catch.
14. Baker Channel
At 121 km, Baker Channel is the longest fjord on this list in the southern hemisphere, driving east into the Chilean mainland from the south-eastern corner of the Gulf of Penas and opening into Tarn Bay. It is also one of the deepest fjords anywhere, reaching about 1,251 m, part of a complex of glacially cut troughs along the Patagonian coast that includes some of the deepest water measured inside any fjord system.
The Baker River empties into it, and by volume that is the largest river in Chile, carrying meltwater off the Northern Patagonian Ice Field in a distinctive milky blue. The village of Caleta Tortel sits near the mouth of the river and has no roads and no cars at all: it is stitched together instead by several kilometres of raised walkways built from Guaitecas cypress, climbing between the piers and houses on the steep shore. The surrounding country is temperate rainforest and ice, with almost no settlement, and access is by boat or light aircraft.
15. Wijdefjorden
At 108 km, Wijdefjorden is the longest fjord in Svalbard and the northernmost on this list after Independence Fjord. It opens on the north coast of Spitsbergen and runs almost due south into the interior of the island, separating Andrée Land on its western side from Margaretas Land to the east, with mountains rising directly from the water for most of its length.
The southern half lies within Indre Wijdefjorden National Park, which exists to protect something unexpected: the inner fjord is the driest corner of Svalbard, wrung out by very low precipitation and a wind-tunnel effect down its long, straight axis, and it carries a high-arctic steppe vegetation that is not known anywhere else in the European Arctic. The contrast along a single fjord is the appeal, from open Arctic Ocean and drifting ice at the mouth to dry, almost tawny hillsides at the head. Reindeer and arctic fox are common, and the fjord freezes over in winter.
FAQ: The World’s Longest Fjords
What is the longest fjord in the world?
Measured end to end, it is the Nansen Sound–Greely Fiord–Tanquary Fiord system on Canada’s Ellesmere Island, at 420 km. If you count only single named fjords, Greenland’s Scoresby Sund takes the title at around 350 km. The difference comes down to whether a continuous chain of connected inlets is treated as one fjord.
Why isn’t Norway’s Sognefjord the longest fjord in the world?
The Sognefjord is the longest in Norway and in Europe at 205 km, but the Arctic holds far bigger ones. Greenland and northern Canada were carved by much larger ice sheets grinding for far longer, cutting inlets two and three times that length. Sognefjord does keep a separate record: it is the deepest fjord in Europe.
What is the deepest fjord in the world?
Depth and length are two different rankings. Skelton Inlet in Antarctica is the deepest at about 1,933 m, ahead of Chile’s Messier Channel at 1,358 m and Norway’s Sognefjord at 1,308 m. None of the three leads this list, because a fjord can be extraordinarily deep without running especially far inland.
How is the length of a fjord measured?
Along its centreline, from the head of the innermost arm out to a line drawn across the mouth. That is the convention Norway’s national encyclopedia publishes, and it is applied here worldwide so every entry is comparable. Measuring in a straight line instead, or stopping at the first major bend, produces very different numbers.
Is a fjord the same thing as a sound, a canal or a strait?
Not quite. A fjord is a glacier-carved sea inlet with a head, meaning it runs inland and stops. Names mislead here: Alaska’s Lynn Canal is a genuine fjord, while Matochkin Shar, for all its fjord-like walls, links the Barents Sea to the Kara Sea and is open at both ends, which keeps it off this list.
Planning more of your trip? Keep exploring more world record-breakers.