(Redirected from Landlock)
A 'landlocked country' is commonly defined as a one enclosed or nearly enclosed by land.
[1][2][3][4] As of 2007, there are 39 or 43 landlocked countries in the world.
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.
An island country can be conversely considered waterlocked
[5] as it is entirely surrounded by water. In such cases, one must cross water to reach land abroad.
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. 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 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 Poland was given the
Danzig Corridor to provide an outlet to the sea. The
Danube was
internationalized so that landlocked
Austria,
Hungary and
Czechoslovakia (and the southern parts of
Germany, itself not landlocked) could have secure access to the Black Sea. In the
1800s, the
US, despite having an extensive
Atlantic coastline, pursued "
manifest destiny" - an
American ideal which held that it was the destiny of the US to control area from
sea to
sea - granting it two coastlines. This is a further example of the strategic and economic importance of controlling coastline.
Losing access to the sea is often a great blow to nations. 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. 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.
Austria and Hungary also lost their access to the sea as a consequence of the
Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Before, although
Croatia had a constitutional within
Hungary, the City of
Fiume 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.
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.
List of landlocked countries
:''
★ Has a coast on the non-freshwater
Caspian Sea''
:''
★
★ Has a coast on the non-freshwater
Aral Sea''
They can be grouped in ''contiguous'' groups as follows:
★ Central Asia landlocked countries (6):
Afghanistan,
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan
★ Central European and Balkan landlocked countries (8):
Austria,
Czech Republic,
Hungary,
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:
Ethiopia,
Lesotho,
Swaziland
★ Asia:
Bhutan,
Laos,
Mongolia,
Nepal
★ Europe:
Andorra,
Belarus,
Luxembourg,
Moldova,
San Marino,
Vatican City
Europe is the continent with the most landlocked countries (16), while
Africa is a close second with 15.
Asia has 10, 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.)
After World War II, the
Saarland and
West-Berlin became landlocked while being separated from
Germany. The Soviet
Berlin blockade of 1948 stopped all land traffic. The threat of starvation of the large population was overcome by the Western Allied
Berlin airlift.
Doubly landlocked
A landlocked country which is surrounded entirely 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 only two such countries in the world:
★
Liechtenstein in
Central Europe
★
Uzbekistan in
Central Asia (if the
Caspian Sea is considered as a lake).
However, Liechtenstein has indirect access to the sea via the
Rhine, a major waterway, but only after the
Bodensee. Uzbekistan has borders with two countries (Kazakhstan in the north and Turkmenistan in the south) which border the
landlocked but salt
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
Russia and then of the
Soviet Union; while Liechtenstein borders
Austria, which had an
Adriatic coast until 1918.
Nearly landlocked
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%
Corridors
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-
World War I 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. 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
Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Bosnia & Herzegovina have sea corridors while
Bolivia lost its corridor to the sea after the
War of the Pacific.
Railway missing links
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 over the
Himalaya passes, unlike
Tibet.
Notes
1. Definition of landlocked
2. Landlocked
3. Landlocked definition
4. AskOxford
5. Definition of waterlocked
See also
★
Enclave
★
List of countries by length of coastline
★
List of countries that border only one other country
★
Navies of landlocked countries
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