Lagoon

Currituck, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds in North Carolina,[9] Great South Bay between Long Island and the barrier beaches of Fire Island in New York,[10] Isle of Wight Bay, which separates Ocean City, Maryland from the rest of Worcester County, Maryland,[11] Banana River in Florida, US,[12] Lake Illawarra in New South Wales, Australia,[13] Montrose Basin in Scotland,[14] and Broad Water in Wales have all been classified as lagoons, despite their names.

In Spanish, coastal lagoons generically are laguna costera, but those on the Mediterranean coast are specifically called albufera.

In Russian and Ukrainian, those on the Black Sea are liman (лиман), while the generic word is laguna (Лагуна).

In New Zealand the Māori word hapua refers to a coastal lagoon formed at the mouth of a braided river where there are mixed sand and gravel beaches, while waituna, an ephemeral coastal waterbody, is neither a true lagoon, lake, nor estuary.

In Portuguese, a similar usage is found: lagoa may be a body of shallow seawater, or a small freshwater lake not linked to the sea.

In 1697 William Dampier referred to a "Lagune or Lake of Salt water" on the coast of Mexico.

Coastal lagoons form along gently sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop offshore, and the sea-level is rising relative to the land along the shore (either because of an intrinsic rise in sea-level, or subsidence of the land along the coast).

Coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres (13 ft).

The number and size of the inlets, precipitation, evaporation, and inflow of fresh water all affect the nature of the lagoon.

On the other hand, lagoons with many wide inlets, such as the Wadden Sea, have strong tidal currents and mixing.

Large quantities of sediment may be occasionally be deposited in a lagoon when storm waves overwash barrier islands.