Archipelagic state

An archipelagic state is a country made up of one or more islands grouped together. This special status is defined by a big agreement called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea from 1982. Some well-known archipelagic states are The Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines.

Being an archipelagic state means that the country can treat the waters between its islands as its own special area, called archipelagic waters. By June 2015, 22 countries had asked to be recognized as archipelagic states. However, not all island countries want this status. For example, places like Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Cuba, Iceland, Chile, and the United Kingdom have many islands but chose not to become archipelagic states.

Archipelagic waters

Archipelagic states are countries made up of many islands. The waters around these islands are called archipelagic waters. These waters belong to the country, but ships from other countries can pass through certain routes.

An archipelagic state can pick special sea lanes and air routes for travel between countries. If they don’t pick these routes, the normal routes will be used. Ships cannot go more than 25 miles away from these special lanes.

History

The idea of an archipelagic state began in 1924 when someone suggested grouping islands together when thinking about water borders. This idea became important after World War II when countries like the Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, and the Philippines became independent. They used their own laws or treaties to claim waters between their islands.

Later, in 1952, a group suggested defining archipelagos as three or more islands in the ocean, with waters between them as internal waters. But this idea was challenged. Finally, in 1982, an international agreement called UNCLOS was made, which settled the rules for these island countries. This agreement included special rules for archipelagic states, making it easier for them to control the waters around their islands.

List of archipelagic states

This is a list of countries made up of many islands. These countries follow rules set by a big agreement called the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

There are 22 island countries that have asked to be recognized as archipelagic states. The five that are officially recognized are shown in bold.

State	Geographical configuration	Geological type	Area (km2)	Population		Geographical location
				total	per km2
Antigua and Barbuda	One archipelago with two main islands	Oceanic	440	97,118	194	Caribbean Sea Leeward Islands
Bahamas	One archipelago	Oceanic	13,878	392,000	23.27	North Atlantic Ocean Lucayan Archipelago
Cape Verde	One archipelago	Oceanic	4,033	518,467	125.5	North Atlantic Ocean Macaronesia
Comoros	One archipelago	Oceanic	2,235	784,745	275	Indian Ocean Comoro Islands
Dominican Republic	One archipelago with its main island (Hispaniola) shared with another country (Haiti)	Continental	48,442	10,652,000	208.2	Caribbean Sea Greater Antilles
Fiji	One archipelago with two main islands	Various	18,274	859,178	46.4	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Grenada	One archipelago with two main islands	Oceanic	344	110,000	319.8	Caribbean Sea Windward Islands
Indonesia	One archipelago with several islands; four of them (Borneo, Sebatik, New Guinea, and Timor) shared with four other countries: Brunei, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste. World's largest archipelagic state.	Various	1,904,569	270,203,917	124.7	World Ocean Maritime Southeast Asia
Jamaica	One archipelago with one main island	Various	10,991	2,847,232	252	Caribbean Sea Greater Antilles
Kiribati	Three archipelagos	Oceanic	811	123,346	152	Pacific Ocean Micronesia
Maldives	One archipelago	Oceanic	298	329,198	1,105	Indian Ocean Maldive Islands
Marshall Islands	Two archipelagos	Oceanic	181	62,000	342.5	North Pacific Ocean Micronesia
Mauritius	Two archipelagos with two main islands	Oceanic	2,040	1,244,663	610	Indian Ocean Mascarene Islands
Papua New Guinea	One archipelago with its main island (New Guinea) shared with another country (Indonesia)	Continental shelf	462,840	6,732,000	14.5	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Philippines	One archipelago	Continental shelf	300,000	101,398,120	295	North Pacific Ocean Maritime Southeast Asia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	One archipelago with one main island	Continental shelf	389	120,000	307	Caribbean Sea Windward Islands
São Tomé and Príncipe	One archipelago with two main islands	Continental shelf	1,001	163,000	169.1	Atlantic Ocean Cameroon Line
Seychelles	Four archipelagos	Oceanic	455	87,500	192	Indian Ocean Seychelles Islands
Solomon Islands	Five archipelagos	Oceanic	28,400	523,000	18.1	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Trinidad and Tobago	One archipelago with two main islands	Continental shelf	5,131	1,299,953	254.4	Caribbean Sea Lesser Antilles
Tuvalu	One archipelago	Oceanic	26	12,373	475.88	South Pacific Ocean Polynesia
Vanuatu	One archipelago	Oceanic	12,190	243,304	19.7	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia