page_title: Thames Estuary
section_title: Greater Thames Estuary
hierarchical_section_title: Thames Estuary / Greater Thames Estuary
caption_attribution_description: English: The Thames Estuary, Shorne Marshes and Tilbury Power Station from near the top of Mill Hill Lane, Shorne.
context_page_description: The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain.
  The limits of the estuary have been defined in several ways:
  Although physically the head of Sea Reach or the Kent / Essex Strait, south of Canvey Island on the northern shore presents a western boundary, the Tideway itself can be considered estuarine; it starts in south-west London at Teddington/Ham.
  The Yantlet Line between the Crowstone in Chalkwell and the London Stone on the Isle of Grain.
  The Nore sandbank between Havengore Creek, Essex, and Warden Point, Kent.
  The eastern boundary of the estuary suggested in a Hydrological Survey of 1882-9 is a line drawn from North Foreland, Margate, Kent via the Kentish Knock lighthouse to Harwich in Essex. It is to this line that the typical estuarine sandbanks extend. The estuary downstream of the Tideway has a tidal movement of 4 metres, moving at a speed of up to 2.6 knots.
  A line from Warden Point on the Isle of Sheppey Kent via Sea Reach No. 1 buoys to Havengore Head Essex.
  The estuary is one of the largest of 170 such inlets on the coast of Great Britain.
context_section_description: The appellation Greater Thames Estuary applies to the coast and the low-lying lands bordering the estuary itself. These are characterised by the presence of mudflats, low-lying open beaches and salt marshes, namely the North Kent Marshes and the Essex Marshes. Man-made embankments are backed by reclaimed wetland grazing areas, but rising sea levels may make it necessary to temporarily flood some of that land in places at spring tides, to take the pressure off the defences.
  There are many smaller estuaries in Essex, including the Rivers Colne, Blackwater and Crouch.  Small coastal villages depend on an economy of fishing, boat-building, and yachting.  The Isle of Sheppey, the Isle of Grain, Canvey Island, Two Tree Island, Havengore Island, New England Island, Rushley Island, Potton Island, Foulness Island and Mersea Island  are part of the coastline.
  Where higher land reaches the coast there are some larger settlements, such as Clacton-on-Sea to the north in Essex, Herne Bay, Kent, and the Southend-on-Sea area within the narrower part of the estuary.
caption: The upper part of the estuary from Tilbury to Mucking Creek looking north from Shorne, which is 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) south of the river
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