The Wash

The Wash
Site of Special Scientific Interest
Sunset in Hunstanton
The Wash, showing the position of the towns and major villages that are of significance and the neighbouring areas.
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Regions	East of England East Midlands
Counties	Lincolnshire Norfolk
Districts	East Lindsey Borough of Boston South Holland King's Lynn and West Norfolk
Time zone	UTC±0 (Greenwich Mean Time)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (British Summer Time)

The Wash is a shallow natural rectangular bay and multiple estuary on the east coast of England, United Kingdom. The bay is an inlet of the North Sea. It is the largest estuary system in the United Kingdom, the largest natural bay in England and one of the most important places of conservation in Europe, with several nature reserves.

The coastline is partly in Lincolnshire and partly in Norfolk. The Norfolk part forms the north-west corner of East Anglia. The coastline stretches from Gibraltar Point near Skegness in Lincolnshire to Gore Point near the village of Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. These two points are over 75 miles (121 km) from each other by road, but only eleven and a half miles (18.5 km) by sea.

The bay is made up of multiple estuaries, marshland, deep water channels (in particular the Boston and Lynn Deeps), shifting shallow water channels which are all surrounded by multiple sandbanks.

There are several large settlements near its coastline, the largest is the town of King's Lynn in Norfolk followed by the two slightly smaller towns of Boston in Lincolnshire and Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. These are the three main inland ports in the Wash area; another port is the Lincolnshire village of Sutton Bridge. Nearby, on either side of the Wash, are the seaside towns of Hunstanton and Skegness. Also nearby is the royal estate of Sandringham.