Re: [FT] Size of "Countries" in FT

On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, Adrian Johnson wrote:
> >At 12:49 AM 12/3/98 +0000, you wrote:
> >>Even today including territorial
> >>waters and Antartic region Australia is the 3rd largest area under
one
> >>government (the big ones are USA and Russia) 
> >Bollocks! Canada is the second largest, China the third, USA is 
> >number four, which I suppose would put Oz at number five...
> Slow down there hoss...  he said "area under one government" not
"total
> land area."	Canada is the second largest country in land area, has
the
> longest total coastlines, etc etc, but the Australians control vast
tracts
> of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, and a good portion of
Antarctica.

whoah there!

one, what do you mean 'controls vast tracts of oceans'? international
law
once recognised 3 miles as the limit of territorial waters, and i think
it
is now 5 miles. the soviets used to claim it was 12 miles. the exclusive
economic zone extends 200 miles, but it is not truly territorial waters.

two, antarctica does not really count - treaties and international
opinion
prevent any major exploitation of that land, and it is not aussie 
territory anyway - it is (iirc) un territory mandated to australia.
nobody
owns antartica.

anyway, land area isn't so important. it's population and material
resources that matter, as well as how well you can control your
territory
- the indonsians may nominally have huge areas of ocean, but do they
really control them?

Tom