Only two countries are landlocked inside landlocked countries
To reach the sea from Liechtenstein or Uzbekistan you must cross at least two national borders — a quirk only these two nations share.
Dozens of countries are landlocked, with no coast of their own. But just two are doubly landlocked — surrounded entirely by other landlocked countries, so reaching any ocean means crossing at least two national borders.
The pair are Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan. Tiny Liechtenstein, in the Alps, is sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria — both themselves landlocked. Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, is hemmed in by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, every one of which also lacks a coast.
Liechtenstein only became doubly landlocked in 1918, when the break-up of Austria-Hungary redrew the map around it.
Uzbekistan joined the club in 1991, born from the collapse of the Soviet Union. The status is genuinely rare: it requires a whole neighbourhood of coast-less states to line up just so.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
