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Landlocked country

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 five continents 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 international waterway|internationalized so that landlocked Austria, Hungary, Slovakia (and the southern parts of Germany, itself not landlocked) could have secure access to the Black Sea.
- The Ba'ath Party|Ba'athi regime of Iraq - under the ruling of Saddam Hussein - Invasion of Kuwait|invaded the country's southern neighbor Kuwait for better access to the Persian Gulf in 1990.
- 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 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.
- Geography of Bolivia|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 Bolivian gas conflict#Dispute over pipeline route|popular risings.
- Austria and Hungary also lost their access to the sea as a consequence of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)|Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Trianon (1920) respectively. Before, although Croatia had a constitutional Wiktionary:autonomy|autonomy within Hungary, the City of Rijeka|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 Allies of World War I|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 Province|Trabzon and Rize Province|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 countriesUN Report, 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 Sea|Caspian and the Aral Sea|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 Volga-Don Canal|canal between the River Volga|Volga and Don River (Russia)|Don rivers.)

List of landlocked countries

- Afghanistan
- Andorra
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan †
- Belarus
- Bhutan
- Bolivia
- Botswana
- Burkina Faso
- Burundi
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Czech Republic
- Ethiopia
- Hungary
- Kazakhstan †‡
- Kosovo °
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lesotho ¤
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg
- Republic of Macedonia|Macedonia, Republic of
- Malawi
- Mali
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Nepal
- Niger
- Paraguay
- Rwanda
- San Marino ¤
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Swaziland
- Switzerland
- Tajikistan
- Turkmenistan †
- Uganda
- Uzbekistan ‡
- Vatican City ¤
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
- † ''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
- Central 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, 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:
- Liechtenstein in Central Europe
- Uzbekistan in Central Asia 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 Sea|Adriatic coast until 1918. Nor was there during WW2 as Liechtenstein bordered Nazi Germany and Uzbekistan was in the USSR.

Nearly landlocked

The following countries are almost landlocked, because of their relatively short coastline:
- Iraq (Persian Gulf via Al-Faw Peninsula) 58 km (35 mi)
- Slovenia (Adriatic Sea via Koper) 47km (29 mi)
- Democratic Republic of the Congo (Atlantic Ocean) 40km (25 mi)
- Bosnia and Herzegovina (Adriatic Sea via Neum) 26 km (16 mi)
- Jordan (Red Sea-Gulf of Aqaba via Aqaba) 26 km (16 mi)

Notes

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