Arctic Geopolitical Configuration
103definition^5 : sub-national administrative units with at least one per cent of
territory within either the Arctic Circle (66°33ƍ 44 Ǝ) or 10º of the July
Isotherm or Tree line represent the cases in the dataset. Due to the
specifics of national statistical reports we work with the administrative
division of 2010 throughout the whole period under study.
Such a configuration results in twenty-seven sub-national administrative
units or “Arctic provinces”^6 : Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest
Territories, Quebec, Nunavut, Yukon (Canada); Faroe Islands, Greenland
(Denmark); Kainuu, Lapland, North Ostrobothnia (Finland); Iceland;
Finnmark, Nordland, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Tromsø (Norway);
Arkhangelsk and Nenets, Chukchi, Karelia, Khanty-Mansii, Komi,
Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, Sakha/Yakutia, Yamal-Nenets (Russia);
Norrbotten, Västerbotten (Sweden); and Alaska (United States). Not only
do these provinces impose administrative borders on land but they also
delimit the Arctic maritime space according to real and imaginary borders
of, respectively, Arctic states’ exclusive economic zones^7 and national
sectors.^8
Arctic provinces are both similar and heterogeneous. On the one hand,
all of them experience the lowest temperatures on earth, the longest
(^5) ArcticStat’s version incorporates geographic definitions by three scientific and
political organizations: the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, the
Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Northern Forum –
http://www.arcticstat.org/Map.aspx.
(^6) Arkhangelsk, Nenets, Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land are aggregated;
Nordland and Jan Mayen are aggregated; Labrador is incorporated into
Newfoundland and Labrador; Nunavik is incorporated into Quebec; Chukchi
includes Koryak; and Krasnoyarsk includes Evenk and Dolgan-Nenets provinces
and Severnaya Zemlya. Distorted results are possible in case of Alaska, Quebec,
Krasnoyarsk, and Sakha/Yakutia provinces – the share of non-Arctic area exceeds
50 per cent of total area.
(^7) The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1994) defines an
exclusive economic zone (EEZ) as the area adjacent to the territorial sea extending
to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the coast, within which the coastal state is
sovereign in practicing economic exploitation and exploration of living and non-
living resources, energy production, establishment and use of artificial islands,
installations, and structures having economic and scientific purposes; and
preservation of the marine environment.
(^8) Sector-based delimitation of the Arctic ocean assumes five Arctic states (Canada,
Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States) have territorial sovereignty over
all land and islands enclosed within a triangular sector defined by a baseline or the
contiguous land mass of the claiming state and two lines of longitude traced to the
point at which they converge at the Pole – Ȼɚɪɰɢɰ, “Ɉ ɩɪɚɜɨɜɨɦ ɫɬɚɬɭɫɟ
ɪɨɫɫɢɣɫɤɨɝɨ ɚɪɤɬɢɱɟɫɤɨɝɨ ɫɟɤɬɨɪɚ”, 1-2.