Which Alaska glacier is the world's largest piedmont glacier?

The Alaska glacier recognized as the world’s largest piedmont glacier is the Malaspina Glacier.

Located in southeastern Alaska between Icy Bay and Yakutat Bay, Malaspina spreads outward from the Saint Elias Mountains onto a broad coastal plain. This fan-shaped geometry makes it a piedmont glacier: ice leaves a confined mountain valley and expands laterally across flatter terrain. Its area is about 3,900 square kilometers, roughly comparable to Rhode Island.

Malaspina is an unusual composite ice body. Seward Glacier, Agassiz Glacier, and Marvine/Hayden Glacier converge to form the broad system commonly called Malaspina. The name honors Alessandro Malaspina, a Tuscan explorer serving in the Spanish Navy who visited the region in 1791; the United States Coast Survey later applied the name in 1874.

Readers sometimes confuse Malaspina with a tidewater glacier. Although it lies near the Gulf of Alaska, its ice does not directly reach the sea. Another technical wrinkle is that some component glaciers are officially classified separately, even though the combined piedmont system is conventionally known as Malaspina Glacier.