Fjords

8 wonders

Sea drowned in a glacier-cut valley — cliffs plunging into deep water.

Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand

Doubtful Sound

Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand

Fiordland's deep, silent wilderness fjord — larger, wilder, and far quieter than neighbouring Milford Sound, reached only by boat across Lake Manapouri and a mountain pass, its three dark arms walled by rainforest cliffs and roamed by dolphins, seals, and penguins.

Geirangerfjord, Sunnmøre, Western Norway

Geirangerfjord

Sunnmøre, Western Norway

One of the world's most celebrated fjords — a deep, narrow arm of the sea winding between sheer 1,000-metre cliffs laced with waterfalls like the Seven Sisters, with abandoned farms clinging to impossible ledges.

Kenai Fjords National Park, Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, United States

Kenai Fjords National Park

Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, United States

A coast of glacier-carved fjords on the Gulf of Alaska, where tidewater glaciers spilling from the vast Harding Icefield calve straight into the sea among humpback whales, orcas, sea otters, and cliffs of nesting seabirds.

Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand

Milford Sound

Fiordland National Park, South Island, New Zealand

New Zealand's most famous fjord — sheer cliffs and the pyramid of Mitre Peak rising straight from dark water, laced with waterfalls fed by some of the highest rainfall on Earth, in the heart of Fiordland.

Nærøyfjord, Aurland, Vestland, Western Norway

Nærøyfjord

Aurland, Vestland, Western Norway

The narrowest fjord in the world open to cruising — a slender, UNESCO-listed arm of the great Sognefjord, squeezed to barely 250 metres between cliffs that climb well over a kilometre straight from the water.

The Hardangerfjord, Hardanger, Vestland, Western Norway

The Hardangerfjord

Hardanger, Vestland, Western Norway

Norway's second-longest fjord and its orchard country — 179 kilometres of deep blue water reaching inland from the coast past Trolltunga, the Vøringsfossen falls, and the Folgefonna glacier, its gentler slopes white with apple and cherry blossom each spring.

The Lysefjord, Rogaland, Southwestern Norway

The Lysefjord

Rogaland, Southwestern Norway

A 42-kilometre fjord of sheer, luminous granite near Stavanger, walled by two of the world's most famous clifftops — Preikestolen, the flat Pulpit Rock 604 metres above the water, and Kjerag, whose face plunges nearly a kilometre straight down.

The Sognefjord, Sogn, Vestland, Western Norway

The Sognefjord

Sogn, Vestland, Western Norway

The King of the Fjords — Norway's longest and deepest fjord, reaching more than 200 kilometres inland from the coast to the foot of the Jotunheimen mountains, its narrow arms lined with sheer cliffs, hanging waterfalls, and villages under snow peaks.