Landlocked
A
landlocked country is one that has no
coastline, meaning no access to
sea or
ocean. There are 43 landlocked countries in the world.
A
landlocked sea is a sea that is either not at all or not directly connected to the
oceans. The
Caspian Sea and the
Aral Sea are sometimes considered to be
lakes. If that is taken to be true, 44 percent of the total amount of water in the world's lakes forms the Caspian Sea.
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 countries controlling the entrance, and/or be relevant for
tides and
freshwater content.
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. Around the world, coastal regions tend to be wealthier and more heavily populated than inland ones.
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 bisecting
Angola to connect it to the sea by the
Conference of Berlin in
1885. The
Dubrovnik Republic had 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 for which it now provides limited sea access, splitting the
Croatian part of the Adriatic coast in two. After
WWI Poland was given the
Danzig Corridor to give it an outlet on the sea. The
Danube was internationalized so that landlocked
Austria,
Hungary and
Czechoslovakia could have secure access to the sea.
Losing access to the sea is often a great blow to nations. The successful separatist movements of areas that allow a host country sea access (such as in
Eritrea and
Montenegro) are of great concern (by that means,
Ethiopia and
Serbia have recently become landlocked).
Bolivia lost its coastline to Chile in the
War of the Pacific. Still to this day the
Bolivian Navy trains in
Lake Titicaca for an eventual recovery and, in the 21st century, the selection of the route of gas pipes from Bolivia to the sea fueled
popular risings. Hungary also lost its access to the sea as a consequence of the
Treaty of Trianon in 1920: although
Croatia had a constitutional
autonomy within
Hungary, the City of
Fiume was independent, governed directly as a
corpus separatum from
Budapest by an appointed governor, as
Hungary's only international port between 1779-1813, 1822-1848 and 1868-1918. When the
Entente Powers divided up the former
Ottoman Empire under the
Treaty of Sèvres at the close of
World War I,
Armenia was promised access to the
Black Sea through the Trebizond eyalet (the modern day
Trabzon and
Rize provinces in
Turkey). However, this agreement collapsed with the
Turkish War of Independence led by
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and was superseded by the
Treaty of Lausanne.
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 no readily usable one. For instance,
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.
Similarly, 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.
An
island nation, a country completely surrounded by water, is the opposite of a landlocked one.
* Each of these countries has a coast on the non-freshwater Caspian SeaA landlocked country which is surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries may be called a "doubly landlocked" country. A person in such a country would have to cross at least two borders to reach a coastline.
There are only two such countries in the world:
Liechtenstein in
Central Europe and
Uzbekistan in
Central Asia.
However, their landlocked neighbours do have indirect access to the sea, via the
Danube river in Liechtenstein's case and via canals from the landlocked but non-freshwater
Caspian Sea in the case of Uzbekistan. Liechtenstein itself is on the
Rhine.
From 1938 to 1945, no doubly landlocked countries existed; this is because Uzbekistan was part of the
Soviet Union and
Austria was a part of
Nazi Germany, meaning Liechtenstein bordered one country with a coastline.
The following countries are almost landlocked, and their short coastlines measure only a tiny fraction of the length of their land
borders. The list below gives the countries where this fraction is less than 5%:
*
Democratic Republic of the Congo, 0.3%
*
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1.4%
*
Iraq, 1.6%
*
Jordan, 1.6%
*
Republic of the Congo, 3.0%
*
Togo, 3.3%
*
Slovenia, 3.4%
*
Belgium, 4.6%
A landlocked country may be given access to the sea through a
corridor.
In the
Treaty of Versailles, a part of Germany, designated "the
Polish corridor", was given to the new post-WWI country
Second Polish Republic, for access to the
Baltic Sea, which was also the pretext for making Danzig with its harbour the
Free City of Danzig. In addition to losing territory,
East Prussia was turned into an
exclave, separated from
Germany proper by the same "Polish Corridor". A much smaller exterritorial land corridor, for a
railway or a road which would connect
Germany to
East Prussia without artificial obstructions, was denied.[
1]
The
Democratic Republic of the Congo has a sea corridor while
Bolivia lost its corridor to the sea after the
War of the Pacific.
While the railway systems of Europe and North America all interconnect (albeit sometimes with incompatible technology), Africa, South and Central America, Asia and the Middle East generally do not connect very well. This might be called "
rail-locked".
Kathmandu, for instance, the capital of landlocked
Nepal, does not have any railway connection.
*
Enclave*
List of countries by length of coastline*
List of countries that border only one other country
