Who’s Claiming What?

Explore the maritime claims of nearly 40 countries across the Indo-Pacific. All claims are shown based on states’ domestic legislation, treaties, and submissions to international bodies. The map is an unbiased depiction of claims; it does not judge their legality or guess at future delimitations. Click on any claim line for its source, including links to original documents where available.

Methodology

Territorial seas, exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and continental shelves are depicted based on publicly-available treaties, domestic laws, official charts, and, in the case of continental shelves, submissions to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. In most cases, if coordinates have not been published, 12-nautical-mile territorial seas and 200-nautical-mile EEZs and continental shelves have been drawn from the claimants’ coasts.

For a number of claimants, like India, Japan, and Tonga, a median line has been used to depict their unresolved overlapping claims with neighboring states. This is based on their domestic legislation, which mandates the use of a provisional median line in such cases. All other undelimited claims are shown to their full extent. In cases where the 200-nautical-mile EEZ or continental shelf claim of one party extends into the 12-nautical-mile territorial sea of another, the latter is given priority unless otherwise noted in a public statement of claim.

Straight baselines declared by the claimants are displayed on the map and used as the basepoints from which territorial seas, EEZs, and continental shelves are measured. In cases where straight baselines have not been declared, an approximation of the low-water margin along the coast has been used to measure maritime entitlements, but those approximations are not displayed.

In the South China Sea, maritime entitlements from the Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, and Scarborough Shoal are not shown due to a lack of clarity about what each party claims from them. This will be updated as more clarity is provided. China’s nine-dash line and Taiwan’s U-shaped line in the South China Sea are depicted as separate claim types due to their continued ambiguity.