Talk:West Quoddy Head Light

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The article currently claims that Quoddy Head is the closest point of the 50 US States to Europe. This seems to be an un-supportable claim, considering that the distance from West Quoddy Head to the nearest point on contiguous continental Europe appears to be to the northwestern corner of Galicia, Spain, which is 4500 km, while the distance from the northern point of Alaska, near Barrow, to the closest Norwegian mainland near Nord Kap (Island) of Norway is only 4200 km.

If you consider that "Europe", for this context, includes outlying islands, then which do you include ? West Quoddy Head is slightly closer to Ireland than to Galicia(Spain). Do you include Fastnet Rock ? The Azores ? Iceland ? Rockall ? Svalbard ? St Pierre et Miquelon ? Where do you draw the line ?

If you only consider major islands located on the same tectonic plate/continental shelf of Europe ( which would eliminate Azores and Iceland as being mid-oceanic islands not geographically associated with any continent ), then Barrow, Alaska is still closer to Svalbard, Norway, than West Quoddy Head is to Ireland.Eregli bob (talk) 03:37, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]