Landlocked countries: nations with no coast at all

A landlocked country is one with no access of its own to the open sea. It sounds like a footnote, yet it applies to around 44 countries worldwide. Some are tiny, one is enormous, and two are so enclosed that even their neighbours have no coast.

How many there are

Right now the count sits at around 44 landlocked countries. They are not spread evenly: Africa has the most with 16, Europe follows with about 14, Asia with around 12, and South America has only two. That uneven spread is part of why they slip through so easily in a quiz. Australia and North America, by the way, have no landlocked countries at all, because their nations are either islands or reach the sea. So anyone guessing leans unconsciously on their own world map and skips whole regions.

Doubly landlocked

Only two countries are doubly landlocked, meaning they are surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries. To reach the sea from there you have to cross at least two borders:

• Liechtenstein: sits between Austria and Switzerland, both of which have no coast either.
• Uzbekistan: became the second doubly landlocked country after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, ringed only by landlocked states.

The giant and the clusters

The largest country with no coast is Kazakhstan at around 2.7 million square kilometres, which also makes it the ninth-largest country on Earth. Landlocked countries tend to appear in groups. In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan line up together. In Africa, a broad belt from the Sahel down into the south forms the biggest cluster of all, with countries like Mali, Niger, Chad, Zambia and Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa. Such clusters are no accident: where many countries border one another, some are inevitably left with no room at the sea.

The two in South America

South America has just two landlocked countries: Bolivia and Paraguay. The two share a border, and Bolivia in particular has been pushing for Pacific access ever since it lost its coastline in the 19th century. In a quiz they make a neat test: if you carry the map of the continent in your head, you instantly know only the middle counts.

Why they vanish in a quiz

Landlocked countries have a hard time staying in memory. They often sit inside large landmasses with no striking coastline to anchor a shape on. And the coast is exactly what many people use to recognise a silhouette. A country like Chad or Niger is blocky and unremarkable in outline, while Italy or Chile jump out at once. On top of that, landlocked countries rarely show up in the news as travel destinations. So anyone guessing blindly tends to reach for countries with a beach. That blind spot, though, is something you can train away.

This is exactly where practice helps. In CountryRush landlocked countries show up as outlines and flags, including the easily forgotten ones like Lesotho, Nepal or Paraguay. The Daily Trip makes sure it is not always the coastal countries that come up.