At 07:50 AM 26/11/2004 +0000,
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> > Which country has the greatest coastline to area ratio?
I would guess chile: long and thin, with lots of coastal islands.
But any island archipelago country (indonesia? philippines, kiribati) would
do well. Atolls in particular:
But this simple sounding question raises issues:
do you count the inside of the atoll ring as sea?
define 'land' exactly... low tide elevations? Remember some countries are
still arguing over whether low tide elevations are land for purposes of
drawing maritime boundaries.
how 'fractal' do you go on coastline measurement. Remember that if you go
to the infinite limits of fractal measurement then ALL countries would come
out equally, because your ration of coast to surface area is infinity over
a non-infinite rational number.
It all comes down to the age-old question:
"how long is the coastline of Britain?"
And this will be the problem with using available statistics: each country
will measure its land area and coastline in a different way, so the figures
are not comparable. Ever tried looking up the area of the US on the
internet? You get 20 different answers from 20 different US govt
departments. Ditto with even small 'easy' countries like the Netherlands or
Denmark. Which is correct? All of them, and none of them.
> > Is there any country every point in which is nearer to every other
>point in which than it is to any point in any other country?
The most circular country. So leaving aside islands like Nauru or Niue
where the answer is trivial, you want a circular country like Uruguay, or
Swaziland or Lesotho. I suspect the last two are the winners of this
competition.
See more comments below.
> >
> > If you know the answers to these-or know where I can find them out-
>I'd be very glad to hear from you!
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Daniel
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Peter Hering [mailto:hering@m...]
> > Sent: 24 November 2004 09:16
> > To: Daniel Hill
> > Subject: Re: enclaves
> >
> > Good morning Daniel !
> >
> > * believe it or not - but your enquiry has started a big discussion
> > on the term "enclave" - in order to answer YOUR question it is ab-
> > solutely essential to being able to define the term "enclave"...
> >
> > * if we stick to the definition: part of a nation that is separated
> > from the motherland by another territory (and NOT a body of water)
> > then the answer to your question would be
> >
> > - for Europe:
> >
> > 1- Büsingen: only 600 metres from Germany (over Swiss territ.)
> > 2- Llivia: - ca. 1 km - Spain (- French - )
> > 3- Campione: - - 1 km - Italy (- Swiss - )
> > 4- Baarle Nassau: - 5 km - Belgium (- Dutch - )
> > 5- Vennbahn enclaves: diff. distances from Germany (o. Belgian t.)
> >
> > 6- Kaliningrad enclave (the WINNER!): ca. 370 km from Russia (over
> > Lithuanian and Belaruss. territory)
> >
Kaliningrad *IS* separated from mother Russia by water: The Baltic. So it
is in a completely different league to the others. You are comparing apples
and oranges. Also, it is much larger than the others, so it is more
self-sufficient, and can survive so far away: because it is big and because
it has sea access.
Llivia would not have survived 400 years as part of Spain if it was the
same size as it is now, but 340km inside France!
Dr Brendan Whyte
Assistant Map Curator
ERC Library
University of Melbourne
Vic 3010
AUSTRALIA
bwhyte@...