Höga Kusten

Received from: Sweden
Category: Klub Polki na Obczyźnie
Date: August 2015

The High Coast (Swedish: Höga kusten) is a part of the coast of Sweden on the Gulf of Bothnia, situated in the municipalities of Kramfors, Härnösand and Örnsköldsvik and notable as a type area for research on post-glacial rebound and eustacy, in which the land rises as the weight of the glaciers melts off of it. This phenomenon was first recognised and studied there; since the last ice age the land has risen 800 m, which accounts for the unusual landscape with tall cliff formations. The High Coast is part of the Swedish/Finnish High Coast/Kvarken Archipelago world heritage site (the High Coast was extended with Finnish Kvarken areas in 2006). UNESCO, while inscribing the area on the World Heritage List in 2000, remarked that "the High Coast site affords outstanding opportunities for the understanding of the important processes that formed the glaciated and land uplift areas of the Earth's surface".