The United States expanded by 386,000 square miles in size (6.21 lakh square kilometres) last month as the Department of State (DOS) included six regions’ submerged offshore territories, known as an extended continental shelf (ECS), to the total landmass, according to Metro. The ECS is the region of the continental shelf that is submerged in shallow water beyond 200 nautical miles. The Arctic is the US’s largest ECS area, stretching 350 miles (612 kilometres) to the north and more than 680 miles (1,094 kilometres) to the west, according to the outlet. According to the USGS, it is an important maritime zone with numerous resources and critical habitats for marine life. The government stated that America’s ECS encompasses six more regions: The Atlantic east coast, the Pacific west coast, the Bering Sea, the Mariana Islands and two portions of the Gulf of Mexico.
The land area added to the US territory is nearly twice the size of Spain
“Like other countries, the United States has rights under international law to conserve and manage the resources and vital habitats on and under its ECS,” the State Department said in the announcement. The land area added to the US territory is nearly twice the size of Spain. Wilson Centre, a think tank based in Washington, DC, said that ECS extension has major implications for the US’s efforts to secure its territorial rights in the Arctic region. “It has long been clear that the United States has major economic interests in undersea territory rich in oil, natural gas, minerals and sea life to which it has sovereign rights under the law of the sea as reflected in the Law of the Sea Convention,” the think tank was quoted as saying by Metro.
Wilson Centre also said that the US has the largest exclusive economic zone on the planet, which helps it safeguard its sovereign rights to areas submerged under water. “It is also an important milestone reflecting US engagement with the law of the sea as reflected in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and as an aspect of advancing major US interests in the Arctic and other regions,” said the Wilson Centre. The ECS extension is based on data analysis conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS).