An archipelagic state is an island country that consists of an archipelago. The designation is legally defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In various conferences,^[1] The Bahamas, Fiji, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines are the five original sovereign states that obtained approval in the UNCLOS signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica on 10 December 1982 and qualified as the archipelagic states.^[2]

Archipelagic states are composed of groups of islands forming a state as a single unit, with the islands and the waters within the baselines as internal waters. Under this concept ("archipelagic doctrine"), an archipelago shall be regarded as a single unit, so that the waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, irrespective of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the state, and are subject to its exclusive sovereignty. The baselines must enclose the main islands of the archipelago and the enclosed water to land ratio must be "between 1:1 and 9:1".^[3]

The approval of the United Nations (UN) for the five sovereign states as archipelagic states respect^[4] existing agreements with other countries and shall recognize traditional fishing rights and other legitimate activities of the immediately adjacent neighboring countries in certain areas falling within archipelagic waters. The terms and conditions for the exercise of such rights and activities, including the nature, the extent and the areas to which they apply, shall, at the request of any of the countries concerned, be regulated by bilateral agreements between them. Such rights shall not be transferred to or shared with third countries or their nationals.^[5]

As of 20 June 2015, a total of 22 sovereign states have sought to claim archipelagic status.^[6]

List of archipelagic states

This is a list of the current archipelagic states in the world. These 22 island countries have sought to claim archipelagic status by utilising the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea provisions.^[6][7]

Bolded are the five original official archipelagic states.

State	Geographical configuration[6]	Geological type[8]	Population	Area (km2)[9]	Population density (per km2)	Geographical location
Antigua and Barbuda	One archipelago with two main islands	Oceanic	97,118	440	194	Caribbean Sea Leeward Islands
Bahamas	One archipelago		392,000	13,878	23.27	North Atlantic Ocean Lucayan Archipelago
Cape Verde			518,467	4,033	125.5	North Atlantic Ocean Macaronesia
Comoros			784,745	2,235	275	Indian Ocean Comoro Islands
Dominican Republic[10]	One archipelago with the main island (Hispaniola) shared with another country (Haiti)	Continental	10,652,000	48,442	208.2	Caribbean Sea Greater Antilles
Fiji	One archipelago with two main islands	Various[note 1]	859,178	18,274	46.4	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Grenada[note 2]	One archipelago with two main islands	Oceanic	110,000	344	319.8	Caribbean Sea Windward Islands
Indonesia	One archipelago with four islands (Borneo, Sebatik, New Guinea, and Timor) shared with four other countries (Brunei, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste).	Various[note 3]	270,203,917	1,904,569	124.7	World Ocean Maritime Southeast Asia
Jamaica	One archipelago with one main island		2,847,232	10,991	252	Caribbean Sea Greater Antilles
Kiribati	Three archipelagos	Oceanic	123,346	811	152	Pacific Ocean Micronesia
Maldives	One archipelago		329,198	298	1,105	Indian Ocean Maldive Islands
Marshall Islands	Two archipelagos		62,000	181	342.5	North Pacific Ocean Micronesia
Mauritius	Two archipelagos[clarification needed] with two main islands		1,244,663	2,040	610	Indian Ocean Mascarene Islands
Papua New Guinea	One archipelago with the main island (New Guinea) shared with another country (Indonesia)	Continental shelf	6,732,000	462,840	14.5	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Philippines	One archipelago		101,398,120	300,000	295	North Pacific Ocean Maritime Southeast Asia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Archipelago with one main island		120,000	389	307	Caribbean Sea Windward Islands
São Tomé and Príncipe	One archipelago with two main islands		163,000	1,001	169.1	Atlantic Ocean Cameroon Line
Seychelles	Four archipelagos	Oceanic	87,500	455	192	Indian Ocean Seychelles Islands
Solomon Islands	Five archipelagos		523,000	28,400	18.1	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia
Trinidad and Tobago	One archipelago with two main islands	Continental shelf	1,299,953	5,131	254.4	Caribbean Sea Lesser Antilles
Tuvalu	One archipelago	Oceanic	12,373	26	475.88	South Pacific Ocean Polynesia
Vanuatu	One archipelago		243,304	12,190	19.7	South Pacific Ocean Melanesia