Landlocked country

Landlocked country is a country entirely enclosed by land, or whose only coastlines lie on closed seas. There are 47 landlocked countries in the world, including partially recognized states. Of the major landmasses, only North America, Australia, and inhospitable Antarctica do not have a landlocked country inside their respective continents.

History and significance

Bolivia's loss of its coast in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884) remains a major political issue. In the mural is written: "What once was ours, will be ours once again", and "Hold fast, rotos (Chileans), for here come the Colorados (Reds) of Bolivia".

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. Paul Collier in his book The Bottom Billion argues that being landlocked in a poor geographic neighborhood is one of four major development "traps" by which a country can be held back. In general, he found that when a neighboring country experiences better growth, it tends to spill over into favorable development for the country itself. For landlocked countries, the effect is particularly strong, as they are limited from their trading activity with the rest of the world. "If you are coastal, you serve the world; if you are landlocked, you serve your neighbors. Others have argued that being landlocked may actually be a blessing as it creates a 'natural tariff barrier' which protects the country from cheap imports. In some instances this has led to more robust local food systems. 

Landlocked developing countries have significantly higher costs of international cargo transportation compared to coastal developing countries (in Asia the ratio is 3:1).

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 Republic of Ragusa 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 Second Polish Republic, for access to the Baltic Sea. This was also the pretext for making Danzig (now Gdańsk) with its harbour the Free City of Danzig. This gave Poland a slight coastline, which was soon enlarged as the small fishing harbor of Gdynia grew into a large one.

The Treaty of Versailles also enforced that Germany needs to offer Czechoslovakia a lease for 99 years for a part of the ports in Hamburg and Stettin, allowing Czechoslovakia sea trade over the Elbe and Oder rivers. While the former Stettin is now part of Poland after World War II, Hamburg still continued the contract so that the part of the port (now called Moldauhafen) may still be used for sea trade by the successor of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic.

The Danube is an international waterway so that landlocked Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia (plus the southern parts of Germany, itself not landlocked) could have secure access to the Black Sea.

Losing access to the sea is generally a great blow to a nation, politically, militarily, and particularly with respect to international trade and therefore economic security:

The independence 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. The Bolivian Navy still trains in Lake Titicaca for an eventual recovery, and the Bolivian people annually celebrate a patriotic "Dia del Mar" (Day of the Sea) to remember its territorial loss, which included both the coastal city of Antofagasta and what has proven to be one of the most significant and lucrative copper deposits in the world. In the 21st century, the selection of the route of gas pipes from Bolivia to the sea fueled popular uprisings.

Austria and Hungary also lost their access to the sea as a consequence of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Trianon (1920) respectively. Before, although Croatia had a constitutional autonomy within Hungary, the City of Fiume/Rijeka on the Croatian coast was governed directly from Budapest by an appointed governor as a corpus separatum, 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.

List of landlocked countries

Afghanistan 647,500 29,117,000

Andorra 468 84,082

Armenia 29,743 3,254,300

Austria 83,871 8,396,760

Azerbaijan  86,600 8,997,400

Belarus 207,600 9,484,300

Bhutan 38,394 691,141

Bolivia 1,098,581 10,907,778

Botswana 582,000 1,990,876

Burkina Faso 274,222 15,746,232

Burundi 27,834 8,988,091

Central African Republic 622,984 4,422,000

Chad 1,284,000 10,329,208

Czech Republic 78,867 10 674 947

Ethiopia 1,104,300 85,237,338

Hungary 93,028 10,005,000

Kazakhstan 2,724,900 16,372,000

Kosovo 10,908 1,804,838

Kyrgyzstan 199,951 5,482,000

Laos 236,800 6,320,000

Lesotho 30,355 2,067,000

Liechtenstein 160 35,789

Luxembourg 2,586 502,202

Republic of Macedonia 25,713 2,114,550

Malawi 118,484 15,028,757

Mali 1,240,192 14,517,176

Moldova 33,846 3,567,500

Mongolia 1,564,100 2,736,800

Nagorno-Karabakh 11,458 138,000

Nepal 147,181 29,331,000

Niger 1,267,000 15,306,252

Paraguay 406,752 6,349,000

Rwanda 26,338 10,746,311

San Marino 61 31,716

Serbia 88,361 7,306,677

Slovakia 49,035 5,429,763

South Ossetia 3,900 72,000

South Sudan 619,745 8,260,490

Swaziland 17,364 1,185,000

Switzerland 41,284 7,785,600

Tajikistan 143,100 7,349,145

Transnistria 4,163 537,000

Turkmenistan 488,100 5,110,000

Uganda 241,038 32,369,558

Uzbekistan 447,400 27,606,007

Vatican City 0.44 826

Zambia 752,612 12,935,000

Zimbabwe 390,757 12,521,000

Total 16,963,624 470,639,181

Percentage of World 11.4% 6.9%

a Has a coast on the saltwater Caspian Sea

b Has a coast on the saltwater Aral Sea

c Disputed region with limited international recognition

d Completely landlocked by exactly one country

They can be grouped in contiguous groups as follows:

Central Asian cluster (6): Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

European cluster (9): Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo (partially recognized), Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia and Switzerland

Central and East African cluster (10): Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Sudan

South African cluster (4): Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Caucasian cluster (3): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh (unrecognized)

South American cluster (2): Bolivia, Paraguay

If it were not for the 40 km of coastline at Muanda, DR Congo would join the two African clusters into one, making them the biggest contiguous group in the world.

There are the following 'single' landlocked countries (each of them borders no other landlocked country):

Africa (2): Lesotho, Swaziland

Asia (4): Bhutan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal

Europe (6): Andorra, Belarus, Luxembourg, Moldova, San Marino, and the State of the Vatican City

Caucasus (1): South Ossetia (partially recognized)

If Transnistria is included then Moldova and Transnistria form their own cluster.

If the Caucasian countries are counted as part of Europe, then Europe has the most landlocked countries, at 19. Kazakhstan is also sometimes regarded as a transcontinental country, so if that is included, the count for Europe goes up to 20. If these countries are included in Asia, then Africa has the most, at 16. Depending on the status of the three transcontinental countries, Asia has between 9 and 14, while South America has only 2. North America and Oceania are the only continents with no landlocked countries.

Doubly landlocked country

A landlocked country surrounded only 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 surrounded by Switzerland and Austria.

Uzbekistan in Central Asia surrounded by Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

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 man-made Volga-Don Canal, and thence the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the oceans.

There were no doubly landlocked countries in the world from the Unification of Germany in 1871 until the end of World War I. This is because Uzbekistan was part of the Russian Empire, and thus part of a country that was not landlocked; while Liechtenstein bordered Austria-Hungary, a country which had an Adriatic coast until it was dissolved in 1918. Upon the dissolution of Austria-Hungary Liechtenstein became a doubly landlocked country. There were again no doubly landlocked countries from 1938 until the end of World War II, as Nazi Germany had incorporated Austria, which meant that Liechtenstein bordered a country with a coast. After World War II Austria regained its independence and Liechtenstein became doubly landlocked once more. Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became the second doubly landlocked country.

Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea, Xəzər dənizi, دریای خزر or دریای مازندران, Russian: Каспийское море, Kazakh: Каспий теңізі, Chechen: Paama Xord, Turkmen: Hazar deňzi) is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 (143,200 sq mi) (not including Garabogazköl Aylagy) and a volume of 78,200 km3 (18,800 cu mi). It is in an endorheic basin (it has no outflows) and is bounded to the north by Russia, to the south by Iran, western Azerbaijan, and eastern Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

The ancient inhabitants of its littoral perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness and seeming boundlessness. It has a salinity of approximately 1.2%, about a third the salinity of most seawater. The Caspian Sea has been called Gilan (جیلان or بحر جیلان) on ancient maps. In Iran, it is referred to as Daryâ-ye Mazandaran (دریای مازندران), meaning "the Sea of Mazandaran" in Persian, and sometimes also as Daryâ-ye Khazar.

History

The 17th-century cossak rebel and pirate Stenka Razin, on a raid in the Caspian (Vasily Surikov, 1906).

The earliest human remains around Caspian are from Dmanisi dating back to around 1.8 ma and yielded a number of skeletal remains of Homo erectus or ergaster. More later evidence for human occupation of the region come from a number of caves in Georgia and Azerbaijan such as Kudaro and Azykh Caves. There new evidence for Lower Paleolithic human occupation at south of Caspian from western Alburz. These are Ganj Par and Darband Cave sites. Neanderthal remains also have discovered at a cave site in Georgia. Discoveries in the Huto cave and the adjacent Kamarband cave, near the town of Behshahr, Mazandaran south of the Caspian in Iran, suggest human habitation of the area as early as 11,000 years ago.

Etymology

The word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi (Persian: کاسپی), an ancient people that lived to the south west of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo wrote that "to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea; but the tribe has now disappeared". Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Tehran province of Iran, is another possible piece of evidence that they migrated to the south of the sea. There is a city named Qazvin in Iran which was a former capital of the Persian Empire.

According to Indian Hindu belief, the name 'Caspian' is supposed to have been derived from the Sanskrit word 'Kashyapa' the name of an ancient Indian Sage.

In classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the mazandaran sea (Persian: مازندران). Among Indians it was called Kashyap Sagar. In Turkic speaking countries it is known as the Khazar Sea. Old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn (Khvalynian) Sea (Хвалынское море /Хвалисское море) after the Khvalis, inhabitants of Khwarezmia. Ancient Arabic sources refer to as Baḥr Gilan (Arabic: بحر جیلان‎ - the Caspian/Gilan Sea).

Turkic languages use a consistent nomenclature that is different from the Indo-European languages above. For instance, in Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňzi, in Azeri, it's Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it's Hazar denizi. In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the North of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries.

Geological history

Like the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. The Caspian Sea became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. During warm and dry climatic periods, the landlocked sea has all but dried up, depositing evaporitic sediments like halite that have become covered by wind-blown deposits and were sealed off as an evaporite sink when cool, wet climates refilled the basin. Due to the current inflow of fresh water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions. It is more saline on the Iranian shore, where the catchment basin contributes little flow. Currently, the mean salinity of the Caspian is one third that of the Earth's oceans. The Garabogazköl embayment, which dried up when water flow from the main body of the Caspian was blocked in the 1980s but has since been restored, routinely exceeds oceanic salinity by a factor of 10.

Geography

Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world and accounts for 40 to 44 percent of the total lacustrine waters of the world. The coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct physical regions: the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian. The North-Middle boundary is the Mangyshlak Threshold, which runs through Chechen Island and Cape Tiub-Karagan. The Middle-South boundary is the Apsheron Threshold, a sill of tectonic origin between the Eurasian continent and an oceanic remnant, that runs through Zhiloi Island and Cape Kuuli. The Garabogazköl bay is the saline eastern inlet of the Caspian, which is part of Turkmenistan and at times has been a lake in its own right due to the isthmus which cuts it off from the Caspian.

Divisions between the three regions are dramatic. The Northern Caspian only includes the Caspian shelf, and is very shallow; it accounts for less than one percent of the total water volume with an average depth of only 5–6 metres (16–20 ft). The sea noticeably drops off towards the Middle Caspian, where the average depth is 190 metres (620 ft). The Southern Caspian is the deepest, with oceanic depths of over 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). The Middle and Southern Caspian account for 33 percent and 66 percent of the total water volume, respectively. The northern portion of the Caspian Sea typically freezes in the winter, and in the coldest winters, ice will form in the south.

Fauna

The Caspian Sea holds great numbers of sturgeon, which yield eggs that are processed into caviar. Overfishing has depleted a number of the historic fisheries including the economic exhaustion of the tuna fishery. In recent years overfishing has threatened the sturgeon population to the point that environmentalists advocate banning sturgeon fishing completely until the population recovers. However, the high price of sturgeon caviar allows fisherman to afford bribes to ensure the authorities look the other way, making regulations in many locations ineffective. Caviar harvesting further endangers the fish stocks, since it targets reproductive females. The Caspian Sea along with the Black Sea is also home to the native Zebra mussel, which has been accidentally introduced and become an invasive species in many countries. The native range of the Common Carp extends to the Caspian Sea as well as the Black Sea and Aral Sea. Like the Zebra mussel it also has become an invasive species where it has been introduced.

The Caspian seal (Phoca caspica, Pusa caspica in some sources), which is endemic to the Caspian Sea, is one of very few seal species that live in inland waters (see also Baikal seal, Saimaa Ringed Seal). The area has given its name to several species of birds, including the Caspian gull and the Caspian tern. There are several species and subspecies of fish endemic to the Caspian Sea, including the kutum (also known as Caspian white fish), Caspian Marine Shad, Caspian roach, Caspian bream (some report that the Bream occurring in the Aral Sea is the same subspecies), and a Caspian "salmon" (a subspecies of trout, Salmo trutta caspiensis). The "Caspian salmon" is critically endangered.

Environmental issues

The Volga River, the largest in Europe, drains 20% of the European land area and is the source of 80% of the Caspian’s freshwater inflow. Its lower reaches are heavily developed with numerous unregulated releases of chemical and biological pollutants. Although existing data are sparse and of questionable quality, there is ample evidence to suggest that the Volga is one of the principal sources of transboundary contaminants into the Caspian. The magnitude of oil and gas extraction and transport activity constitute risks to water quality. Underwater oil and gas pipelines have been constructed or proposed, increasing potential environmental threats.

Hydrological characteristics

Caspian has characteristics common to both seas and lakes. It is often listed as the world's largest lake, although it is not a freshwater lake. The Caspian became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to plate tectonics. The Volga River (about 80% of the inflow) and the Ural River discharge into the Caspian Sea, but it has no natural outflow other than by evaporation. Thus the Caspian ecosystem is a closed basin, with its own sea level history that is independent of the eustatic level of the world's oceans. The level of the Caspian has fallen and risen, often rapidly, many times over the centuries. Some Russian historians[who?] claim that a medieval rising of the Caspian, perhaps caused by the Amu Darya changing its inflow to the Caspian from the 13th century to the 16th century, caused the coastal towns of Khazaria, such as Atil, to flood. In 2004, the water level was -28 metres, or 28 metres (92 ft) below sea level.

Over the centuries, Caspian Sea levels have changed in synchronicity with the estimated discharge of the Volga, which in turn depends on rainfall levels in its vast catchment basin. Precipitation is related to variations in the amount of North Atlantic depressions that reach the interior, and they in turn are affected by cycles of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Thus levels in the Caspian sea relate to atmospheric conditions in the North Atlantic thousands of miles to the north and west. These factors make the Caspian Sea a valuable place to study the causes and effects of global climate change.

The last short-term sea-level cycle started with a sea-level fall of 3 m (9.84 ft) from 1929 to 1977, followed by a rise of 3 m (9.84 ft) from 1977 until 1995. Since then smaller oscillations have taken place.