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Landlocked
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A landlocked country is commonly defined as one enclosed or nearly enclosed by land. As of 2008, there are 44 landlocked countries in the world. Of the major landmasses that have more than one country, only North America does not have a landlocked country.
A sea that is almost landlocked is connected to the oceans by a strait only, such as the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea.
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A landlocked country is commonly defined as one enclosed or nearly enclosed by land. As of 2008, there are 44 landlocked countries in the world. Of the major landmasses that have more than one country, only North America does not have a landlocked country.
A sea that is almost landlocked is connected to the oceans by a strait only, such as the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea. This may be of strategic importance, with one or two other countries controlling the entrance, and/or be relevant for tides and freshwater content.
An island country can be conversely considered waterlocked as it is entirely surrounded by water. In such cases, one must cross water to reach land abroad.
History and significance
Historically, being landlocked was regarded as a disadvantageous position. It cuts the country off from sea resources such as fishing, but more importantly cuts off access to seaborne trade which, even today, makes up a large percentage of international trade. Coastal regions tended to be wealthier and more heavily populated than inland ones until modern times.
Countries thus have made particular efforts to avoid being landlocked:
- The International Congo Society, which owned the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, was given a thin piece of land cutting through Angola to connect it to the sea by the Conference of Berlin in 1885.
- The Dubrovnik Republic once gifted the town of Neum to the Ottoman Empire because it did not want to have a land border with Venice; this small municipality was inherited by Bosnia and Herzegovina and now provides limited sea access, splitting the Croatian part of the Adriatic coast in two.
- After World War I, in the Treaty of Versailles, a part of Germany, designated "the Polish corridor", was given to the new post-World War I country Second Polish Republic, for access to the Baltic Sea, which was also the pretext for making Danzig (now Gdansk) with its harbour the Free City of Danzig. This made Poland a semi-landlocked country as described in the previous section, but Poland soon enlarged the small fisher harbor of Gdynia into a large one.
- The Danube was internationalized so that landlocked Austria, Hungary, Slovakia (and the southern parts of Germany, itself not landlocked) could have secure access to the Black Sea.
- Serbia became landlocked when Montenegro split from Serbia and Montenegro. By the Danube, however, the country has access to the Black Sea.
Losing access to the sea is generally a great blow to a nation, politically, militarily, and particularly with respect to international trade and therefore economic security:
- The creation of the new states of Eritrea and Montenegro, brought about by successful separatist movements, have caused Ethiopia and Serbia respectively to become landlocked.
- Bolivia lost its coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific. To this day the Bolivian Navy trains in Lake Titicaca for an eventual recovery, and the Bolivian people annually celebrate a patriotic "Dia del Mar" (Day of the Sea) to remember its territorial loss, which included both the coastal city of Antofagasta and what has proven to be one of the most significant and lucrative copper deposits in the world. In the 21st century, the selection of the route of gas pipes from Bolivia to the sea fueled popular risings.
- Austria and Hungary also lost their access to the sea as a consequence of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Trianon (1920) respectively. Before, although Croatia had a constitutional autonomy within Hungary, the City of Rijeka on the Croatian coast was independent, governed directly as a corpus separatum from Budapest by an appointed governor, to provide Hungary with its only international port in the periods 1779-1813, 1822-1848 and 1868-1918.
- When the Entente Powers divided the former Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Sèvres at the close of World War I, Armenia was promised part of the Trebizond vilayet (roughly corresponding to the modern Trabzon and Rize provinces in Turkey). This would have granted Armenia access to the Black Sea. However, the Sèvres treaty collapsed with the Turkish War of Independence and was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne which firmly established Turkish rule over the area.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea now gives a landlocked country a right of access to and from the sea, without taxation of traffic through transit states. The United Nations has a programme of action to assist landlocked developing countries, and the current responsible Undersecretary-General is Anwarul Karim Chowdhury.
Some countries may have a large coastline, but much of it may not be readily usable for trade and commerce. For instance, in its early history, Russia's only ports were on the Arctic Ocean and frozen shut much of the year. Gaining control of a warm water port was a major motivator of Russian expansion towards the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Pacific Ocean. On the other hand, some landlocked countries can have access to the ocean through wide navigable rivers. For instance, Paraguay (and Bolivia to a lesser extent) have access to the ocean through the Paraguay and Parana rivers, respectively.
Several countries have coastlines on landlocked seas, such as the Caspian and the Aral. Since these seas are sometimes considered to be lakes, and since they do not allow access to seaborne trade, countries such as Kazakhstan are still considered to be landlocked. (The Caspian Sea, however, is connected to the Black Sea via a canal between the Volga and Don rivers.)
List of landlocked countries
- † Has a coast on the non-freshwater Caspian Sea
- ‡ Has a coast on the non-freshwater Aral Sea
- ° Disputed region with limited international recognition
- ¤ Completely landlocked by exactly one country
They can be grouped in contiguous groups as follows:
- Central Asian landlocked countries (6): Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
- European landlocked countries (9): Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo °, Liechtenstein, Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia and Switzerland
- Central African landlocked countries (5): Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, Niger
- South African landlocked countries (4): Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe
- East African landlocked countries (3): Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda
- Caucasian landlocked countries (2): Armenia, Azerbaijan
- South American landlocked countries (2): Bolivia, Paraguay
There are the following 'single' landlocked countries (each of them borders no other landlocked country):
- Africa (3): Ethiopia, Lesotho, Swaziland
- Asia (4): Bhutan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal
- Europe (6): Andorra, Belarus, Luxembourg, Moldova, San Marino, South Ossetia (partially recognited), Vatican City
If Armenia and Azerbaijan are counted as part of Europe, then Europe has the most landlocked countries, at 17. Kazakhstan is also sometimes regarded as a transcontinental country, so if that is included, the count for Europe goes up to 18. If these countries are included in Asia, then Africa has the most, at 15. Depending on the status of the three transcontinental countries, Asia has between 9 and 12, while South America has only 2. North America and Oceania are the only continents with no landlocked countries. (Oceania is also notable for having almost no land borders.)
Doubly landlocked country
A landlocked country surrounded by other landlocked countries may be called a "doubly landlocked" country. A person in such a country has to cross at least two borders to reach a coastline.
There are currently two such countries in the world:
Uzbekistan has borders with Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan that border the landlocked but saltwater Caspian Sea, from which ships can reach the Sea of Azov by using the Volga-Don Canal, and thus the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the oceans.
There was no doubly landlocked country in the world from the 1871 Unification of Germany until the end of World War I. This is because Uzbekistan was part of the Russian Empire; while Liechtenstein bordered Austria-Hungary, which had an Adriatic coast until 1918. Nor was there from 1938 until the end of WW2 as Nazi Germany had incorporated Austria and Uzbekistan was in the USSR.
Nearly landlocked
The following countries are almost landlocked, because of their relatively short coastline:
See also
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