Inlet

Bay at the Gulf of Salerno

An inlet is an indentation of a shoreline, usually long and narrow, such as a small bay or arm,^[1] that often leads to an enclosed body of salt water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon, or marsh. In sea coasts, an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an "entrance" or a recession in the shore of a sea, lake, or river. A certain kind of inlet created by glaciation is a fjord, typically but not always in mountainous coastlines and also in montane lakes.

Complexes of large inlets or fjords may be called sounds, e.g., Puget Sound, Howe Sound, Karmsund (sund is Scandinavian for "sound"). Some fjord-type inlets are called canals, e.g., Portland Canal, Lynn Canal, Hood Canal, and some are channels, e.g., Dean Channel and Douglas Channel.

See also

• Alaska Panhandle
• British Columbia Coast
• Calanque
• Inside Passage
• Ria

Notes

References

• Bruun, Per; A.J. Mehta (1978). Stability of Tidal Inlets: Theory and Engineering. Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Pub. Co. p. 510. ISBN 978-0-444-41728-2.  be pub co

External links

Look up inlet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Inlets.

• Coastal Inlets Research Program
• Hood Canal on Google Maps

Coastal geography
Landforms	Anchialine pool Archipelago Atoll Avulsion Ayre Barrier island Bay Baymouth bar Bight Bodden Brackish marsh Cape Channel Cliff Coast Coastal plain Coastal waterfall Continental margin Continental shelf Coral reef Cove Dune cliff-top Estuary Firth Fjard Fjord Freshwater marsh Fundus Gat Geo Gulf Gut Headland Inlet Intertidal wetland Island Islet Isthmus Lagoon Machair Marine terrace Mega delta Mouth bar Mudflat Natural arch Peninsula Reef Regressive delta Ria River delta Salt marsh Shoal Shore Skerry Sound Spit Stack Strait Strand plain Submarine canyon Tidal island Tidal marsh Tide pool Tied island Tombolo Windwatt
Beaches	Beach cusps Beach evolution Coastal morphodynamics Beach ridge Beachrock Pocket beach Raised beach Recession Shell beach Shingle beach Storm beach Wash margin
Processes	Blowhole Cliffed coast Coastal biogeomorphology Coastal erosion Concordant coastline Current Cuspate foreland Discordant coastline Emergent coastline Feeder bluff Fetch Flat coast Graded shoreline Headlands and bays Ingression coast Large-scale coastal behaviour Longshore drift Marine regression Marine transgression Raised shoreline Rip current Rocky shore Sea cave Sea foam Shoal Steep coast Submergent coastline Surf break Surf zone Surge channel Swash Undertow Volcanic arc Wave-cut platform Wave shoaling Wind wave Wrack zone
Management	Accretion Coastal management Integrated coastal zone management Submersion
Related	Bulkhead line Grain size boulder clay cobble granule pebble sand shingle silt Intertidal zone Littoral zone Physical oceanography Region of freshwater influence
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