Located off the western end of the Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula, the archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon is composed of eight islands, totalling 242 square kilometres, and of which only two are inhabited. The islands are bare and rocky, with steep coasts, and only a thin layer of peat to soften the hard landscape. Saint Pierre and Miquelon, officially the Overseas Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France, situated in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near the Newfoundland and Labrador province of Canada. The islands are situated at the entrance of Fortune Bay, which extends into the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, near the Grand Banks. They are 3,819 kilometres from Brest, the nearest point in Metropolitan France,and 25 kilometres from the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland.