Landlocked country
A landlocked state is a state that has no direct connection to the open sea .
There are 44 landlocked countries worldwide, two of which, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan , are surrounded exclusively by other landlocked countries. Three landlocked states, Lesotho , San Marino and Vatican City , are each surrounded by a single neighboring state ( enclave ) and seven states, Andorra , Bhutan , Liechtenstein, Moldova , Mongolia , Nepal and Swaziland , each lie between exactly two neighboring states.
The largest landlocked country in terms of area and at the same time the only landlocked country on two continents is Kazakhstan . There is no landlocked country on an island . The most populous landlocked country is Ethiopia . In terms of area, Mongolia is the second largest landlocked country in the world and one of the most sparsely populated.
Access to world trade
The geographical location of landlocked countries makes it difficult for them to participate in world trade , as this is mainly carried out at sea over great distances. According to a United Nations report, landlocked states spend an average of 15% of their export revenues on transport. This is of particular importance in infrastructural weak areas of the third world.
31 of the internationally recognized landlocked countries - the so-called developing countries with no access to the sea - are considered developing countries , 16 of them are counted among the least developed countries . Eight of the twelve least developed countries in the world according to the Human Development Index are landlocked.
Also inland waterways often serve as access to the sea. More than 10% of goods imports ( oil , mining products, food, heavy goods) into Switzerland are handled from Rotterdam via the Rhine to Basel . The same applies to Austria via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal to Linz , Krems or Vienna and previously upstream from the Black Sea. The Danube is also the main transport route for the landlocked states of Slovakia , Hungary and Serbia . For the countries bordering the Caspian Sea , including Kazakhstan , Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan , the Volga-Don Canal provides access to the world's oceans.
Political Impact
Political events have changed the map again and again, and with it access to the sea:
- With the independence of Eritrea , Ethiopia became a landlocked country. This fact was one of the reasons for Ethiopia's resistance to the independence of Eritrea, which culminated in the Eritrean War of Independence .
- The so-called Polish Corridor , which arose after the First World War between East Prussia and the German Empire , was of great importance for newly founded Poland due to its access to the Baltic Sea .
- The Slovenian-Croatian sea border in the bay of Piran also caused conflicts due to the access to the sea .
- With Montenegro's decision to leave the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro , Serbia became a landlocked state.
- In the saltpeter war of 1879, Bolivia had to cede its coast to the Pacific Ocean to Chile , so that Bolivia became a landlocked state. To this day, Bolivia is making demands on the lost coastal strip. Even the International Court of Justice has been referred to in this case. Nowadays a contract makes it possible for 70% of Bolivian exports to go through Chilean ports. The port of Arica , which has been connected to the Bolivian seat of government La Paz since 1913, plays an important role .
- With the exception of brief interruptions, Austria had direct access to the Mediterranean from 1382 to 1918 through the port of Trieste in what is now Italy . In 1956, Italy and Austria concluded an agreement that regulated non-discriminatory access to the port of Trieste and its use as a free port for Austrian ships, trains and goods.
- The South Sudan was its independence from Sudan to landlocked country, while the Sudan in the north have direct access to the Red Sea has.
- Some Central Asian states, such as Kazakhstan , were coastal states as part of the Soviet Union , but became landlocked when the Soviet Union fell apart.
Role of the UN
In the international law of the sea of the United Nations , landlocked states were legally promised access to the sea. No taxes may be levied on the transport of goods to the sea through other countries. Because many landlocked states are lagging behind in development, the UN has launched a program to support these states.
As early as April 20, 1921, it was multilaterally agreed in the Barcelona Agreement that landlocked states could register civilian merchant ships under their own flag. The agreement also included the freedom of inland waterways, such as the Rhine or Danube in Europe , which gave Austria , Czechoslovakia and Hungary , which had become landlocked countries after the First World War , access to the Black Sea and the opportunity to build their own merchant fleets . Following these agreements, many landlocked states also joined the United Nations' specialized agency for shipping issues, the IMO , after the Second World War .
List of landlocked countries
| Europe | Asia | Africa | South America |
|---|---|---|---|
|
European cluster (8 (9))
individual landlocked states
|
Central Asian Cluster (6) Caucasian Cluster (2 (3)) individual landlocked states |
Central African Cluster (10) South African Cluster (4) individual landlocked states |
South American Cluster (2) |
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Legend:
* within a single other state
** between two other states
*** only surrounded by landlocked states
(): de facto regime with or without disputed autonomy under international law
There are no landlocked states in North America and Australia .
Delimitations
The opposite of a landlocked state is a coastal state . An island state is a state that consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. The land area in the interior of a continent is referred to as “ inland ”, mostly without reference to state borders.
Member states in Germany
In Germany, the federal states of Schleswig-Holstein , Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , Lower Saxony , Bremen and Hamburg ( Neuwerk , as well as the islands of Nigehörn and Scharhörn as part of the district of Hamburg-Mitte ) are referred to as " coastal states " as countries with a coastal share on the North Sea and / or the Baltic Sea but it is not customary to refer to all other federal states as "landlocked states".
Web links
- Jonas Hagen, Trade Routes for Landlocked Countries ( Memento of July 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) // UN Chronicle 2003, issue 4
- LANDLOCKED COUNTRIES: OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES, RECOMMENDATIONS ( MS Word ; 262 kB) // Economic and Social Council, United Nations, 2002
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Vogt: Border conflict Bolivia and Chile: The old dispute over the sea . In: The daily newspaper: taz . March 22, 2017, ISSN 0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed November 14, 2017]).
- ^ Triest (Trieste) - tourist information. In: Reise-nach-italien.de. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
- ↑ https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblPdf/1956_19_0/1956_19_0.html (website accessed on September 11, 2017)
- ^ Sudan: Geographical Description and Map. In: transafrika.org. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
- ↑ South Sudan. Retrieved November 14, 2017 .
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20171115015519/https://www.uni-erfurt.de/forschung/einblicke/text-beitraege/meere-und-ozeane/das-internationale-seerecht/
- ^ Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS) Home. September 28, 2011, archived from the original on September 28, 2011 ; accessed on November 14, 2017 .