coastline paradox

The reason for these inconsistencies is the "coastline paradox".

This is referred to as the coastline paradox.

The coastline paradox is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length.

The paper examines the coastline paradox: the property that the measured length of a stretch of coastline depends on the scale of measurement.

Extreme cases of the coastline paradox include the fjord-heavy coastlines of Norway, Chile and the Pacific Northwest of North America.