A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost entirely surrounded by water but is connected to the mainland on one side.

Peninsulas can be very small, sometimes only large enough for a single lighthouse, for instance. Lighthouses often sit on peninsulas near rocky coastlines to warn sailors that they are getting close to land.

Peninsulas can also be very large. Most of the U.S. state of Florida is a peninsula that separates the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Peninsulas are found on every continent. In North America, the narrow peninsula of Baja California, in Mexico, separates the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez, also called the Gulf of California. In Europe, the nations of Portugal and Spain make up the Iberian Peninsula. The so-called Horn of Africa, which juts into the Arabian Sea on central Africas east coast, is a huge peninsula. The nations of North Korea and South Korea make up the Korean Peninsula in eastern Asia. In Australia, the Cape York Peninsula is only 160 kilometers (99 miles) from the island of New Guinea. The Antarctic Peninsula seems to point to the tip of South America, several hundred kilometers (miles) away.