Doubly landlocked countries

Two borders from the sea

A landlocked country has no direct access to an ocean, or to a sea that is itself open to the ocean. There are 44 of them. Two, Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan, are doubly landlocked: every country around them is landlocked too.^[1]

Liechtenstein, in the Alps, is surrounded by Austria and Switzerland.^[4] Uzbekistan borders Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.^[1]

Liechtenstein: Austria’s lost coast

Liechtenstein wasn’t always doubly landlocked. Its eastern neighbour used to be the Habsburg empire, which reached the Adriatic. The Treaty of Saint-Germain, signed by Austria and the Allies on 10 September 1919, recorded the empire’s breakup and took Trieste and Istria away from Austria, leaving it without a coast.^[2]

Being two borders from the sea has done Liechtenstein little harm. It adopted the Swiss franc in 1921 and joined a customs union with Switzerland in 1923, and it has become a banking centre.^[4] Britannica notes that small, rich landlocked states such as Liechtenstein benefit from the wealth of their neighbours.^[1]

Uzbekistan: the Soviet Union’s heartland

The Soviet government set up the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924 as one of the republics of the USSR. Uzbekistan declared independence on 31 August 1991.^[3] Its five neighbours are all landlocked, so it became the second doubly landlocked country.^[1]

The Aral Sea on its northwestern edge doesn’t help: it is an inland sea, and it has lost as much as nine-tenths of its area and volume as the rivers feeding it were diverted.^[3]

The Caspian question

Uzbekistan’s status depends on how you count the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan both have Caspian coasts, but the Caspian has no outlet to the ocean, so they are counted as landlocked. Such inland seas are treated as large lakes, although that has been a matter of debate.^[1]