The EEZ and the True Shape of a Nation
Plus: The most important map I had never heard of.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved looking at maps. I love the way they transport you around the world, allowing you to trace the thin line of a road across Kenya or plot the island stops on a voyage across the Pacific.
In my family, we used the big, red Life Atlas to keep a running list of all of the countries we had each visited. I always marveled at the places I had been but didn’t remember and looked with jealousy at the countries my older brother had visited that I hadn’t.
The nerve, traveling before I had yet to arrive. Part of me was thinking, “They should have waited.”
There is a sense of permanency to a map that is quite misleading. When looking at a map, there's a feeling that this is how the world is and probably always will be. But there’s nothing like an old map to show just how impermanent they are.
Recently I was looking at some old maps with my daughter. Old maps lead to funny, off-the-cuff comments like, “Oh, that? That’s not a country anymore.”
Not a country anymore? What happened to it? Where exactly did it go?
After all, maps, the ones with states, nations, and borders, are a political snapshot. But there’s a map that I think is uncommon for most people to look at. In fact, I had never thought to look it up (I assumed it existed somewhere) until I was researching this post. Yet it might be the most accurate and essential map of the ocean’s political economy.
After all, it shows the actual shape of our, and every, nation.
In this map, a country’s borders don’t end at the shoreline but instead, go out to sea. This proper map of a nation’s borders goes to the edge of its Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.
Take a look:
Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/territorial-map-of-world/
Before we dive into what exactly an EEZ is, here’s a quick reference for the question you may be asking yourself: "Who cares?”.
Well, for those of you in the U.S. like me, according to NOAA:
“The U.S. EEZ is the largest in the world, spanning over 13,000 miles of coastline and containing 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean—larger than the combined land area of all fifty states.”
**Note: Some resources list France as having the largest EEZ. The U.S. and France have expanded their EEZs by possessing Pacific island territories.
For some nations, particularly island States, their EEZ is vastly more extensive than their land territory. On the map above these nations, usually almost invisible, become their true, larger selves.
What is the EEZ?
According to the NOAA website, an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is:
“an area of the ocean, generally extending 200 nautical miles (230 miles) beyond a nation’s territorial sea, within which a coastal nation has jurisdiction over both living and nonliving resources.”
The EEZ defines the area within which a nation has the right to explore for and exploit natural resources - everything from energy to seafood - and includes not only the water but the seabed and whatever lies buried beneath it.
This definition of the EEZ extends a country’s influence far beyond what is known as “territorial waters,” which extend 12 nautical miles out to sea.
The idea of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and its definition came from the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1973–82) and “the reason for 200 miles is that this is an approximation to the extent of the continental shelf where, with very rare exceptions, the vast majority of fish are caught.” (John Beddington, in Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, 2001 I.E. Post-UN Convention on the Law of the Sea)
Both tapped and untapped resources.
It is a common cliche to repeat that we know more about the Moon, Mars, or Space in general than we know about our oceans. While this is changing, it does still ring true. However, I tend to think of this lack of knowledge describing the ocean’s greatest depths - these dark, cold places thousands of feet below the water's surface.
But that’s not entirely accurate. Also on the NOAA site:
“Despite the importance of these resources to the health and security of our nation, only about 40 percent of the U.S. EEZ has been mapped, and significantly less has been fully characterized, meaning that these resources remain poorly understood and undefined.”
And that unmapped area, it’s those places out in the middle of the Pacific right?
Well, yes. But also:
+ What is the “EEZ?” - Oceanexplorer.NOAA.gov
Note the unmapped seafloor of the Eastern U.S. shallow water EEZ!
More Than Just Fish
While the definition of the EEZ is rooted in seafood resources, there’s a lot more to it. Defining the EEZ is what China leans on with claims that it has the right to build islands in the South China Sea and Nauru claims as its right to mine the seabed for minerals.
Like contested borders on land, contested boundaries of EEZs are the source of international friction and conflict at sea.
While the headline of this article on IUU fishing (link below) sounds straightforward enough, the article requires this disclaimer:
* Global Fishing Watch recognises that the maritime delimitation is not agreed between Indonesia and Vietnam for their respective EEZs. For this analysis the existing treaty for the delimitation of the continental shelf between the two countries was used as a proxy for the boundary of the EEZs. Global Fishing Watch welcomes the efforts by both nations to expedite the delimitation of the EEZs to strengthen their ability to identify and combat IUU fishing.
+Detecting Dark Fishing Activity in the North Natuna Sea - GFW
Monitoring developments in the technology to define, monitor, and enforce EEZ boundaries and their vast resources will be an essential trend in the ocean economy going forward. And headlines about conflict over EEZs - not only activities in and around them but their definition - their boundaries, and what constitutes “in accordance with international law” - will continue to make headlines.
To further reinforce why you should care, keep in mind this story that came out last week:
Activities in the South China Sea seem important but far away (for me). Activities in Nauru? Where’s that again?
Headlines about Alaska still feel distant. That’s just the nature of the sheer scope of U.S. territory. But it is undeniably hitting closer to home.
Glossary
While we’re at it, here’s a quick look at other maritime zones recognized under international law. These are short and simplistic summaries of each. Complete definitions and related resources can be found on the NOAA website here.
First, it helps to understand the baseline - the point from which these areas are measured and defined.
Baseline - typically the low-water line along the coast (mean of the lower low tides); subject to change as the coastline “accretes and erodes” (sounds important).
Internal Waters - waters on the landward side of the baseline; full sovereignty of the state; for the U.S., includes the Great Lakes (also sounds important).
Territorial Sea - 12 nautical miles seaward from baseline. “The coastal State exercises sovereignty over its territorial sea, the airspace above it, and the seabed and subsoil beneath it.”
Contiguous Zone - 24 nautical miles from baseline. The state may control to prevent “infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration, or sanitary laws .”A buffer zone.
Exclusive Economic Zone - 200 nm from baseline or out to maritime boundary with another coastal State.
Three Nautical Mile Line - Thomas Jefferson asserted a territorial sea of three nm in 1793, so it’s still in legal precedent and on maps.
Natural Resource Boundary - 9 nm seaward limit of submerged lands in Puerto Rico, Texas, and the Gulf Coast of Florida.
Continental Shelf - “Where the outer edge of a coastal State’s continental margin extends beyond 200 nm from its baselines, the outer limits of its continental shelf are determined in accordance with Article 76 of the Law of the Sea Convention. The portion of a coastal State’s continental shelf that lies beyond the 200 nm limit is often called the extended continental shelf.”
High Seas - All areas not in any State’s EEZ or archipelagic waters of an archipelagic State (everything else).
Area - seabed and subsoil beyond national jurisdiction; “common heritage of mankind” (that never ends well)