Archipelagic state

An archipelagic state is a state that rules an island country, consisting of one or more archipelagos. The designation is legally defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 (UNCLOS III). The Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines are the five original sovereign states that obtained approval in the UNCLOS signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982 and qualified as archipelagic states.

An archipelagic state can designate the waters between the islands as sovereign archipelagic waters.

As of 20 June 2015, a total of 22 sovereign states have sought to claim archipelagic status. Some island countries comprise one or more archipelagos in a geographical sense, but chose not to claim the archipelagic state status, including Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Cuba, Iceland, Chile, and the United Kingdom.

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