Territorial Waters

General Information

North Sea

Baltic Sea

Clyde Marine Region

Adriatic Sea

Eastern Mediterranean Sea

Territorial_Waters

Layer Info
Category	Management
Sub-Category	Governance
Editable	No

Description

According to Wikipedia, the term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a state has jurisdiction. In a narrower sense, the term is used as a synonym for the territorial sea and that is the definition used in the MSP Challenge.

Territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea,[2] are the coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state. The territorial sea is regarded as the sovereign territory of the state, although foreign ships (military and civilian) are allowed innocent passage through it, or transit passage for straits; this sovereignty also extends to the airspace over and seabed below. Adjustment of these boundaries is called, in international law, maritime delimitation.

@wikipedia

MSP Challenge

Within the MSP Challenge Game the territorial waters do not have a special role and are not editable.

Back to Governance.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the North Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Types

• Orange (the Netherlands)
• Blue (Germany)
• Yellow (Denmark)
• Purple (Norway)
• Green (Scotland)
• Red (England)
• Pink (Belgium)
• Navy (France)

Metadata

Data Source

For Scotland/England boundaries: https://marine.gov.scot/maps/522

License: Open Government Licence (OGL)

For all other boundaries: Flanders Marine Institute (2023). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase: Territorial Seas (12NM), version 4. Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/633

License: CC BY 4.0

Original Title

For Scotland/England boundaries: 12 Nautical Miles (12M) limit - Scottish territorial seas - Territorial Sea Act 1987 / Scotland Act 1998

For all other boundaries: Territorial Seas (12NM)

Description

For Scotland/England boundaries:

"12 nautical miles (from baselines) is the limit of the Territorial Sea which is that part of the sea adjacent to the coast of a state that is considered to be part of the territory of that state and subject to its sovereignty."

For all other boundaries:

"Territorial Seas from the VLIZ Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase. Territorial seas are a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state."

Creation Date

For Scotland/England boundaries: 2011-03-03

For all other boundaries: 2023-01-01

Methodology

The layer was clipped to the extend of our area of interest in the North Sea. The geometry was simplified to implement the layer in the MSP Challenge. Both layers were reprojected to Lambert's Azimuthal Equal Area (EPSG:3035) projection, The UK boundary was split in 2: the English and the Scotish parts based on the 12 Nautical Miles (12M) limit - Scottish territorial seas - Territorial Sea Act 1987 / Scotland Act 1998 layer . The attributes table was also reduced; attributes with empty fields for all features were removed.

Sand Extraction Edition

For the Sand Extraction Edition of the MSP Challenge, the territorial water line was updated, with a more recent data layer from Rijkswaterstaat called: "nautische_12mijl" accessed in 02/2025.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the Baltic Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Types

• Blue (Germany)
• Pink (Denmark)
• Purple (Sweden)
• Green (Finland)
• Black (Russia)
• Yellow (Latvia)
• Red (Estonia)
• Navy (Lithuania)
• Orange (Poland)

Metadata

Data Source

This layer is a combination of 2 sources:

1. Flanders Marine Institute (2016). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase: Territorial Seas (12NM), version 1. Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/243 License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
2. HELCOM (2019)

Original Title

Flanders Marine Institute (2016): Territorial Seas (12NM)

HELCOM (2019): Territorial waters

Description

Flanders Marine Institute (2016): "Territorial Seas from the VLIZ Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase. Territorial seas are a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state." Retrieved from marine regions on 2021-07-06.

HELCOM (2019): "Borders of territorial waters (12 nautical miles from baseline) in the Baltic Sea. It is based on a dataset by the European Environment Agency (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/maritime-boundaries). The Russian borders and some small segments are based in OpenStreetMap. See the attribute table for details. The Swedish territorial waters file was edited in November 2019. The source was the Swedish Maritime Administration (https://www.sjofartsverket.se/sv/Maritima-Tjanster/Havsgranser/)". Retrieved from HELCOM on 2021-07-06.

Creation Date

Flanders Marine Institute (2016): 2016-10-21 HELCOM (2019): 2017-01-01

Methodology

The layer from Flanders Marine Institute (2016) was clipped to the extend of our area of interest in the Baltic Sea (as defined in ICES Ecoregions, retrieved in 2017) and Kattegat (as defined in ICES Areas, retrieved in 2017). Geometry errors and duplicates were fixed, and the geometry was simplified to implement the layer in the MSP Challenge. The data layer was also reprojected to Lambert's Azimuthal Equal Area (EPSG:3035) projection.

The layer was updated later on 2020-11-30 using the new version of HELCOM from November 2019.

Western Baltic Sea

The Territorial Waters layer in the Western Baltic Sea Edition remains consistent with that featured in the Baltic Sea edition.

Not Applicable.

There are no territorial waters defined in the Clyde Marine Region.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the Adriatic Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Types

• Red (Italy)
• Green (Slovenia)
• Pink (Croatia)
• Grey (Disputed area)
• Yellow (Montenegro)
• Purple (Albania)
• Blue (Greece)

Metadata

Data Source

This layer was provided by our project partners, who mentioned several sources:

• Italy: IIM acque_territoriali_l_250k.zip
• Croatia: portodimare geoportal
• Montenegro: portodimare
• Albania: portodimare
• Slovenia: https://eprostor.gov.si/imps/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/0e60e2bd-a3e8-4387-ae42-41d85eb1bfe0
• tools4msp.eu geoportal

Original Title

• Italy: IIM acque_territoriali_l_250k.zip (reprojected to EPSG 3035 and digitized as linestring)
• Croatia: Division of Sea
• Montenegro: territorial limit
• Albania: territorial sea
• Legal status all (tools4msp.eu geoportal)

Description

N.A.

Creation Date

2020-06-16

Methodology

The layer was implemented as provided by the project's partners.

In this tab you can see the information that applies concretely to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea edition of the MSP Challenge.

Types

• Yellow (Libya)
• Pink (Egypt)
• Purple (Israel)
• Grey (Disputed Area)
• Blue (Lebanon)
• Red (Syria)
• Navy (Turkey)
• Orange (Cyprus)
• Green (Greece)

Metadata

Data Source

Flanders Marine Institute (2016). Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase: Territorial Seas (12NM), version 1. Available online at https://www.marineregions.org/. https://doi.org/10.14284/243

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Original Title

Territorial Seas (12NM)

Description

Territorial Seas from the VLIZ Maritime Boundaries Geodatabase. Territorial seas are a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state." Retrieved from marine regions on 2021-07-06.

Creation Date

2016-10-21

Methodology

The layer was clipped to the extend of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (Defined as the Aegean-Levantine Sea in ICES ecoregions retrieved in 2021-11-01). The geometry errors and duplicates were fixed; and the geometry was simplified to implement the layer in the MSP Challenge. The data layer was also reprojected to Lambert's Azimuthal Equal Area (EPSG:3035) projection.