Geographic Cutters:

Coasts and Continental Shelf:

Classification and cataloging of coasts in general, and the Atlantic Coast and Pacific Coast of North America in particular is very complex. Major factors contributing to the problem are: actual content vs. content implied by the title, scale, subject content, etc.

To increase consistency in the treatment of these materials, an arbitrary decision has been made regarding the use of G3320. This number is used to class:

North American coast as a whole

and Canadian coast combined

United States coast

Canadian coast

Portions of the Atlantic Coast or Pacific Coast of North America are classed with C6 under the appropriate region, state, or province classification number.

The coast and/or continental shelf for a given area is considered a geographic region, and therefore (except for those instances where a coast has its own 4-digit number) it is classified by using the standard geographic Cutter C6. Example: