The effects of alongshore variations in bottom topography and coastline on the wind-stress-forced barotropic motion over a continental shelf and slope are studied. Perturbation methods are used to obtain solutions for forced and free continental shelf waves on an idealized continental shelf and slope with small-amplitude alongshore variations in topography. The relevant alongshore scales, set by the wind stress and by the bottom and coastline topography, are assumed to be greater than the shelf-slope width. This enables the resulting motion to be treated in the long-wave nondispersive limit. As a result, the alongshore and time-dependent behavior of the perturbation flow is governed by a forced, first order wave equation, with terms from the interaction of the basic, lowest order flow with the bottom and coastline topography acting as the forcing function. To clarify the effects of topography alone, problems are considered where a uniform wind stress forces a basic unperturbed flow which is indep... Abstract The effects of alongshore variations in bottom topography and coastline on the wind-stress-forced barotropic motion over a continental shelf and slope are studied. Perturbation methods are used to obtain solutions for forced and free continental shelf waves on an idealized continental shelf and slope with small-amplitude alongshore variations in topography. The relevant alongshore scales, set by the wind stress and by the bottom and coastline topography, are assumed to be greater than the shelf-slope width. This enables the resulting motion to be treated in the long-wave nondispersive limit. As a result, the alongshore and time-dependent behavior of the perturbation flow is governed by a forced, first order wave equation, with terms from the interaction of the basic, lowest order flow with the bottom and coastline topography acting as the forcing function. To clarify the effects of topography alone, problems are considered where a uniform wind stress forces a basic unperturbed flow which is indep...