April 28th, 2017

A landlocked country bordered only by other landlocked countries is called doubly landlocked. Only two countries are doubly landlocked. The first is Liechtenstein, which borders Switzerland and Austria, both of which are also landlocked. The other such country is Uzbekistan, which borders five other landlocked countries: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Though to the west Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan also border the massive Caspian Sea, so are they really landlocked? Deciding whether the Caspian is a 'true sea', or the world's largest lake, is where the ambiguity lies. A sea is sometimes defined as a body of salt water, in which case the Caspian does fit the bill. Yet a lake is disconnected from the world's oceans, which the Caspian is also...sort of. In 1952 the Volga-Don Canal was opened, which for the first time ever meant it was possible for a boat to reach the ocean from the Caspian through a complex route. Explicitly, as of 1952 a boat could go: Caspian, Volga River, Volga-Don Canal, Don River, Sea of Azov, Kerch Strait, Black Sea, Bosphorus Strait, Sea of Marmara, Dardanelles Strait, Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Strait of Gibraltar, and finally the Atlantic Ocean. So if you want to ask whether or not Uzbekistan is truly doubly landlocked, you are better off asking if digging a canal to a lake turns it into a sea.

Bonus:
कबड्डी (Kabaddi) is a sport popular in South Asia in which a team send a player to try and touch as many of the other team's players as possible and return back to his side of the court on a single breath.

-E