Looking at a Dutch topo map, one can see municipal and provincial
boundaries drawn in the Wadden Sea. I think the Wadden Sea can be
considered internal waters.
Looking at these same maps, however, one can see a provincial
boundary at some distance from the (North Sea, this time) coast.
Inside boundary, the sea belongs to the respective coastal
municipalities. How the situation is outside of this provincial
boundary, I honestly don't know. It seems unlikely to me that the
provincial boundary is the baseline here. It is also strange that
this boundary doesn't follow the coastline closely, but is made up of
straight segments between certain turning points, that often coincide
with specific points in the Dutch topo grid. The distance between
this boundary and the coast is variable. Sometimes it is just 1 km to
the coastline, but sometimes as much as 3 km. At the west of
Walcheren, Zealand province, there is even a very strange "detour" of
this border, where Flushing (Vlissingen) municipality gets an area up
to more than 6 km from the coast (the part between Westkapelle and
Domburg, which doesn't even belong to Flushing), as well as the
entire Westerschelde estuary, right up to the Zealandic-Flemish coast
(municipalities of Oostburg and Sluis-Aardenburg).
(BTW I don't know whether this is still the case after another round
of municipalities merging a couple of years ago. My map dates from
before that)
So my question is: can we consider the strip of North Sea in between
the coast and the provincial boundary to be internal waters? Is the
Dutch 12 nm territorial water zone counted from this boundary (which
I think is unlikely), or from a baseline which is at the low tide
coast line? In that case, the belt of Dutch territorial waters is
narrower than the 12 nm.
Peter S.
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "acroorca2002" <orc@o...> wrote:
> --- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Harry has perhaps been wondering since
july 3339
>
>
>
> > For everybody's correct understanding:
>
> > The Wadden Sea is a tidal sea. At low tide it is even possible to
walk from
>
> > the coast to, in this case, the Island Neuwerk and also to
Scharhorn. One
>
> > only has to cross some channels/gully's.
>
> > Also horse and carts drive over the (dry) sea-floor. Deutsche Post
>
> > transports the mail on a daily bases in this way.
>
> > This also means that the coastline is defined as being at normal
mean tide.
>
>
>
> mean low tide is normally what defines it so i gather that is what
you mean here also
>
>
>
> > I don't know if the Wadden Sea is therefore not yet belonging to
the
>
> > territorial waters??
>
>
>
> the fact that it is a tidal sea or basin makes it seem to fit the
usual definition of internal waters & therefore not to be external
enough to be considered territorial sea
>
> for the territorial sea normally extends only outward 12nm from the
baselines that connect the outermost points on the coast at low tide
>
> but internal waters tho not usually called territorial waters are
in fact more territorial & sovereign than territorial seas since they
are generally more enclosed than territorial seas & also since the
right of innocent passage by foreigners isnt guaranteed upon them
>
> m