[talk-au] natural=land v natural=coastline

[Stephen Hope]

2009/10/6 John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com>:
> If you look at this from the point of view of territorial waters the
> coastline is from either the high or low tide marks, they spell it out
> in legalese and I can't remember off the top of my head, but the coast
> line cuts across any river/delta/bay mouths, except where the bay is
> partially inhabited by another country and then it's usually by
> seperate agreement.

Then they start arguing over how wide the bay has to be before it
stops becoming territorial waters.  Libya has tried to claim the
entire indentation on it's coast (about 500 miles across) as a bay,
and therefore territorial waters.  Pretty much everybody else
disagreed, and occasionally shots were fired over it.

But I don't think we need to worry about this territory line, for our
coastline purpose. We're more worried about were the sea starts and
ends, not where a country does.

Stephen