archipelago

This article deals with a geographical term; for the novel of the same name see under Inger-Maria Mahlke .

An archipelago [ arçiˈpeːl ] is a region made up of a group of islands and the waters between the islands .

Under the law of the sea , states limited to archipelagos have the special opportunity to extend their sovereignty to all waters between those of their islands that are no more than 100  nautical miles apart. Their sovereignty then extends to the islands and the archipelago waters . The archipelago state with the most islands, 17,508, is Indonesia .

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However, the country with the largest archipelago in the world is Finland. The Archipelago region consists of an estimated 20,000 to more than 50,000 islands, depending on whether smaller rocks are also referred to as islands.

Word origin

The term comes from ancient Greek ἀρχιπέλαγος archipélagos and is made up of the parts ἄρχι- archi- "uppermost, main- " (in ancient Greek ἀρχή arché "origin, basis, the first"; see also the corresponding German borrowing from ore ) and πέλαγος pélagos "Sea".

In Italian was Arcipelago  an ancient tradition herein apparently following - - as a proper name initially synonymous with the Aegean Sea used (also Egeopelago , medieval Latin Egeopelagus this from medium Greek Αἰγαῖον πέλαγος Aigaion pelagos ). Later, the importance shifted from Archipelago to the islands, which are very numerous in the Aegean Sea, and in the further development of the proper name was finally with the meaning archipelago or group of islands included in the common parlance.

Duchy of Archipelagos

In the 13th to 16th centuries, the Cyclades before Athens were a duchy of Italian princes, the Duchy of Archipelagos .

Web links

Wiktionary: Archipelago  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Commons : Archipelagos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Part IV Archipelago States . In: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea . Swiss Confederation . Retrieved April 21, 2014.
2. ↑ General country information: Indonesia . German Aerospace Center , Association of German Engineers . Retrieved April 21, 2014.
3. ↑ Duden, The large foreign dictionary. Mannheim u. a. 1994, ISBN 3-411-04161-7 , p. 133.
4. ^ Ernest Klein: A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. Amsterdam u. a. 1966, p. 102.
5. ^ Ottorino Pianigiani: Vocabolario etimologico della lingua italiana. Albrighi, Segati e C., Rome 1907.
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston, Mass. u. a. (Houghton Mifflin) ISBN 978-0-618-70172-8