page_title: Geography of the Falkland Islands
section_title: East Falkland
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of the Falkland Islands / Topographical description / East Falkland
caption_attribution_description: w:San Carlos Water, w:East Falkland
context_page_description: The Falkland Islands are located in the South Atlantic Ocean between 51°S and 53°S on a projection of the Patagonian Shelf, part of the South American continental shelf. In ancient geological time this shelf was part of Gondwana, and around 400 million years ago split from what is now Africa and drifted westwards from it. Today the islands are subjected to the Roaring Forties, winds that shape both their geography and climate.
  The Falklands comprise two main islands, West Falkland and East Falkland, and about 776 small islands.
context_section_description: East Falkland, which has an area of 6,605 km² (2,550 square miles), a little over half the total area of the islands consists of two land masses of approximately equal size – the southerly part known as Lafonia, but the northerly part has no specific name. These land masses are joined by an isthmus of width 2.2 kilometres (1.4 mi) that separates two deep fjords, Choiseul Sound and Brenton Loch-Grantham Sound from each other. The island's 1,668.7 km (1,036.9 miles) coastline has many smaller bays, inlets and headlands.  Over 70% of the population of the Falkland Islands live in the capital, Stanley, which is located in East Falkland.
  The northern part of the island, apart from the coastal strip bordering the Choiseul Sound, is largely underlain by Palaeozoic rocks in the form of quartzite and slate, which tend to form rugged landscapes and coastlines and to cause the soil to be poor and acidic. The principal range of hills, the 600 m (2,000 feet)  Wickham Heights runs from north-east to south-west.  The highest point of the range (also the highest point in the Falklands), is Mount Usborne which has a height of 705 m (2,313 ft).  The area away from the mountain range consists chiefly of low undulating ground, a mixture of pasture and morass, with many shallow freshwater tarns, and small streams running in the valleys.   Two inlets, Berkeley Sound and Port William, run far into the land at the north-eastern extremity of the island and provide anchorage for shipping.
  In contrast, Lafonia is underlain by Mesozoic age sandstone, a younger rock than the Palaeozoic rock to the north, giving a flatter landscape than is seen elsewhere on the island. Sheets of liquid basalt intruded into the cracks that formed between the sedimentary layers. The resulting solidified sheets can now be seen in the form of dikes that cut the oldest sedimentary layers, those that lie principally in the southern part of East Falkland and in South Africa.
caption: San Carlos Water, one of many inlets on East Falkland. The islands are heavily indented by sounds and fjords
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