Without much people noticing, the US has effectively gained more land over the course of the holidays, equivalent to the size of about an Egypt or two Californias. That’s because the State Department announced on December 19, 2023 that they have defined the area of America’s extended continental shelf (ECS). With it, the US added approximately 1 million sq. km. (roughly 386,000 sq. mi.) of seabed and subsoil.
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Just to make things clear, the ECS is different from a country’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Territorial waters are defined as the portion of the waters that extend out to 12 nautical miles from a country’s shoreline, on which a country has full sovereignty.
A country’s EEZ means that they have economic jurisdiction over that part of the water, and thus they have the sole right to harvest, harness, or make use of the natural resources within that area. Meanwhile, the ECS only refers to the land mass under the water, and not any resources above it which is under the term EEZ.
The US ECS, as defined, currently consists of seven distinct maritime areas. As you can imagine, being bordered on different sides by at least three different bodies of water, there’s much underwater ground that the US covers.
So, there’s the Arctic ECS, the Atlantic ECS, the Pacific ECS, two different patches on the Gulf of Mexico, the Bering ECS, and the Mariana ECS. This is considered the largest addition to US land since the 1867 Alaska Purchase.
(Image credit: US State Department)
Source: neatorama