A newly completed map of Estonia shows there are 95 more islands than previously thought, but the country is now four square kilometers smaller. The Land Board maps Estonia's coastline every eight years and the latest aerial images taken in 2020 revealed that the number of islands in territorial waters has risen from 2,222 islands to 2,317.
The Estonian Land Board has stated that the shoreline of the Baltic Sea is constantly changing. The shoreline is affected by post-ice age land uplift, continuous coastal erosion and accretion processes, which are particularly intense with storms. The new official figure of Estonia's landmass is 45,335 square kilometres instead of the previously calculated figure of 45,227.
The new islands have yet to be named.
