Landlocked Country

Landlocked countryFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Green denotes the 48 landlocked countries located in the world.

A landlocked country is a country entirely enclosed by land, or whose only coastlines lie on closed seas.[1][2][3][4] There are 48 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.Contents[hide]

1 History and significance 2 List of landlocked countries

o o o

2.1 Doubly landlocked country 2.2 Landlocked by a single country 2.3 Landlocked by two countries

3 See also 4 References

[edit]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 tradewhich, 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."[5] 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.[6][7] Landlocked developing countries have significantly higher costs of international cargo transportation compared to coastal developing countries (in Asia the ratio is 3:1).[8] 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 theConference 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. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a new country, railways and ports have not been built for its need. There is no freight port along its short coast line at Neum. Instead the port of Ploe in Croatia is used, making it landlocked in reality, although there are plans to change this.

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 Gdask) with its harbour the Free City of Danzig. This gave Poland a slight coastline, which was soon enlarged as the small fishing harbor ofGdynia grew into a large one.

The Treaty of Versailles also forced Germany 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 afterWorld 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 could have secure access to the Black Sea (the same access is given to southern parts of Germany, itself not landlocked, and eastern parts of Croatia, which is also not landlocked).

The Mekong is an international waterway so that landlocked Laos has secure access to the South China Sea (after Laos became independent from French Indochina).

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 short-lived 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 SaintGermain-en-Laye (1919) and the Treaty of Trianon (1920) respectively. Before, although Croatia had a constitutional autonomy within the Kingdom of 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 17791813, 18221848 and 18681918.

When the Entente Powers divided the former Ottoman Empire under the Treaty of Svres 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 Svres 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,[9] and the current responsible Undersecretary-General is Anwarul Karim Chowdhury. Some countries may have a long 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 for much of the year. The wish to gain control of awarm 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 along wide navigable rivers. For instance, Paraguay (and Bolivia to a lesser extent) have access to the ocean by the Paraguay and Parana rivers.

Several countries have coastlines on landlocked seas, such as the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. Since these seas are in effect lakes, and 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 man-made canal between the Volga and Don rivers.)

[edit]List

of landlocked countriesArea (km) Population Cluster

Country

Afghanistan

647,500

29,117,000 Asia

Andorra

468

84,082

Armenia

29,743

3,254,300 Caucasia

Austria

83,871

8,396,760 Europe

Azerbaijan[a]

86,600

8,997,400 Caucasia

Azawad[c]

Central Africa

Belarus

207,600

9,484,300

Bhutan

38,394

691,141

Bolivia

1,098,581

10,907,778 South America

Botswana

582,000

1,990,876 South Africa

Burkina Faso

274,222

15,746,232 Central Africa

Burundi

27,834


Country

Area (km)

Population

Cluster

Central African Republic

622,984


Chad

1,284,000


Czech Republic

78,867

10 674 947 Europe

Ethiopia

1,104,300


Hungary

93,028

10,005,000 Europe

Kazakhstan[a][b]

2,724,900

16,372,000 Asia

Kosovo[c]

10,908

1,804,838 Europe

Kyrgyzstan

199,951

5,482,000 Asia

Laos

236,800

6,320,000

Lesotho[d]

30,355

2,067,000

Liechtenstein

160

35,789 Europe

Luxembourg

2,586

502,202

Macedonia

25,713

2,114,550 Europe

Malawi

118,484


Mali

1,240,192


Country

Area (km)

Population

Cluster

Moldova

33,846

3,567,500 (Moldova)

Mongolia

1,566,500

3,000,000

Nagorno-Karabakh[c]

11,458

138,000 Caucasia

Nepal

147,181

29,331,000

Niger

1,267,000


Paraguay

406,752

6,349,000 South America

Rwanda

26,338


San Marino[d]

61

31,716

Serbia

88,361

7,306,677 Europe

Slovakia

49,035

5,429,763 Europe

South Ossetia[c]

3,900

72,000

South Sudan

619,745


Swaziland

17,364

1,185,000

Switzerland

41,284

7,785,600 Europe

Tajikistan

143,100

7,349,145 Asia

Country

Area (km)

Population

Cluster

Transnistria[c]

4,163

537,000 (Moldova)

Turkmenistan[a]

488,100

5,110,000 Asia

Uganda

241,038


Uzbekistan[b]

447,400

27,606,007 Asia

Vatican City[d]

0.44

826

Zambia

752,612


Zimbabwe

390,757


Total

16,963,624

470,639,181

Percentage of Worlda b c d

11.4%

6.9%

Has a coast on the saltwater Caspian Sea Has a coast on the saltwater 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 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): Azawad (unrecognised), 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.

[edit]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.[10]

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.

[edit]Landlocked

by a single country

There are only three countries that are landlocked by a single country that is they are surrounded on all sides by just one country. Such a country is also called an enclave. The three countries are:

Lesotho, an enclave in South Africa. San Marino, an enclave in Italy. Vatican City, an enclave in the city of Rome, Italy.

[edit]Landlocked

by two countries

There are seven landlocked countries that are surrounded by only two mutuallybordering neighbors:

Andorra (between France and Spain) Bhutan (between India and China) Liechtenstein (one of the "doubly landlocked" countries, between Switzerland and Austria)

Moldova (between Romania and Ukraine) Mongolia (between Russia and China) Nepal (between India and China) Swaziland (between South Africa and Mozambique)

Advantages:* No tsunamis or tidal waves to worry aboutDisadvantages:* Difficult to ship things* Difficult to maintain a Navy* No fishing economy* Has to pay other countries to use their portsRead more:What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a landlocked country? |Answerbag http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/468421#ixzz1GxPgDQ6R LANDLOCKED DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: About LLDCs Lack of territorial access to the sea, remoteness and isolation from world markets and high transit costscontinue to impose serious constraints on the overall socio-economic development of landlockeddeveloping countries. Their sea borne trade unavoidably depends on transit through other countries.Additional border crossings and long distance from the market substantially increase the total expensesfor the transport services.The economic performance of landlocked developing countries reflects the direct and indirect impact of geographical situation on key-economic variables. Landlocked developing countries are generally amongthe poorest of the developing countries, with the weakest growth rates, and are typically heavilydependent on a very limited number of commodities for their export earnings. Moreover, of 30landlocked developing countries 16 are classified as least developed.The remoteness from major world markets is the principal reason why many landlocked developingcountries have not been very successful in mitigating consequences caused by their geographicalhandicap as compared to landlocked countries in Europe. Landlocked developed countries of Europe aresurrounded by major developed markets and their seaborne trade accounts for a relatively small part of their external trade. Their export is mainly high value added products and their distance from theseaport is relatively short.The distances involved in most cases of landlocked developing countries are excessive. Kazakhstan hasthe longest distance from the sea (3,750 km), followed by Afghanistan, Chad, Niger, Zambia andZimbabwe with distances from the nearest seacoast in excess of 2,000 km. Transit time for goods of landlocked developing countries is extremely long because of their long distance, difficult terrain, roadand railway conditions and inefficiency of transit transport.In most cases their transit neighbours are themselves developing countries, often of broadly similareconomic structure and beset by similar scarcities of resources. The recorded trade between landlockedand transit developing countries tends to be relatively insignificant. In most cases, the transit developingcountries are in no position to offer transport systems of high technical and administrative standards towhich their landlocked neighbours might link themselves effectively by the development of their owninternal transport systems.There is a clear correlation between distance and the transport costs. High transport costs erode thecompetitive edge of landlocked developing countries and trade volume. The trade reducing effect isstrongest for transport intensive activities that are dependent on exports or imported intermediategoods for production. Most landlocked developing countries are commodity exporters. According toUNCTAD estimates based on the IMF balance of payment statistics, on average landlocked developingcountries spent almost two times more of their export earnings for the payment of transport andinsurance services than the average for developing countries and three times more than the average of developed economies.Indeed, high transport costs facing landlocked developing countries have become a far more restrictivebarrier to trade for these countries than tariffs. Tariffs for Canada, the European Union, Japan and theUnited States will range from 3 percent

to 7 percent on goods originated from most landlockeddeveloping countries. Then landlocked developing countries on average pay almost three times higherfor transport services than these tariffs. Most landlocked developing countries benefit from recentinitiatives to provide greater market access for goods of least developed countries.To deal with the constraints facing landlocked countries, the International Ministerial Conference of

Landlocked and Transit Developing Countries and Donor Countries and International Financial andDevelopment Institutions on Transit Transport Cooperation was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in August2003. It adopted the Almaty Programme of Action: Addresssing the Special Needs of LandlockedDeveloping Countries within a New Global Framework for Transit Transport Cooperation for Landlockedand Transit Developing Countries and the Almaty Ministerial Declaration.

LANDLOCKED DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Almaty Declaration and Programme of Action To deal with the constraints facing landlocked countries, theInternational Ministerial Conference of Landlocked and Transit Developing Countries and Donor Countries and International Financial andDevelopment Institutions on Transit Transport Cooperationwas held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 25-29August 2003. It was the first of its kind and it provided the international community with a uniqueopportunity to galvanize international solidarity and partnership to assist landlocked developingcountries to effectively participate in the international trading system, through, among other things,establishing transit systems. At its successful conclusions, the Ministerial Conference adopted theAlmatyProgramme of Action: Addresssing the Special Needs of Landlocked Developing Countries within a NewGlobal Framework For Transit Transport Cooperation for Landlocked and Transit Developing Countriesand the Almaty Ministerial Declaration. The UN-OHRLLS prepared the Roadmap for the implementationof the Almaty Programme of Action, which was endorsed at the inter-agency meeting convened on 4February 2004.

TheAlmaty DeclarationandProgramme of Actionreflected the strong commitment of the internationalcommunity to addressing the special needs and problems of landlocked developing countries as calledfor in the United Nations Millennium Declaration. The overarching goal of the Almaty Programme of Action is to forge partnerships to overcome the specific problems of the landlocked developing countriesthat result from their lack of territorial access to the sea and their remoteness and isolation from worldmarkets. That situation has contributed to their relative poverty, substantially inflating transportationcosts and lowering their effective participation in international trade.

The objective of theAlmaty Programme of Actionis to establish a new global framework for developingefficient transit transport systems in landlocked and transit developing countries, taking into account theinterests of both landlocked and transit developing countries. The Programme aims to (a) secure accessto and from the sea by all means of transport; (b) reduce costs and improve services so as to increasethe competitiveness of their exports; (c) reduce the delivered costs of imports; (d) address problems of delays and uncertainties in trade routes; (e) develop adequate national networks; (f) reduce loss,damage and deterioration enroute; (g) open the way for export expansion; and (h) improve the safetyof road transport and the security of people along the corridors.

The main innovative feature of the Almaty Programme of Action is the focus on action-oriented specificmeasures to be undertaken by both landlocked and transit developing countries with the support of theirdevelopment partners, the implementation of which would be measurable and feasible.

Five Priorities in theAlmaty Programme of Action

Policy Improvements - reducing customs bureaucracy and fees, designed to cut costs and travel daysfor landlocked countries' exports.

Improved rail, road, air and pipeline infra-structure - projects will reflect local transport modes; inAfrica, road is the predominant mode of transport; in South Asia, rail is more common.

International trade measures - to give preferential treatment to landlocked countries' goods, makingthem more competitive.

Technical and financial international assistance - donor countries will lend know-how and money tolandlocked and transit countries for infrastructure and policy improvements.

Monitoring and follow-up on agreements -measurable criteria, such as travel days and costs, will be

used, and an annual review before the General Assembly is possible.

UN-OHRLLS mandate on Landlocked Developing Countries

Landlocked Country

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