territorial claims
Disputed border demands
Territorial claims are assertions of sovereignty or ownership over a geographic area, typically made by nations, governments, or other political entities.
Such claims may be based on historical occupation, treaty rights, discovery, or strategic interest, and they often become sources of international dispute when multiple parties claim the same region.
Overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea have heightened regional tensions.
The term also applies more loosely to any assertion of control over physical space, as when animals or even humans mark boundaries.
- annexationAbsorbing territory into jurisdiction
- land grabRapid territorial acquisition
- manifest destinyObvious, inescapable fate
- bordersLines separating regions
- national bordersBoundaries between sovereign states
sovereignty · colonization · resources · sphere of influence · dispute · treaty · indigenous rights · border disputes · arbitration · casus belli · ethnonationalism · jurisdiction · negotiation · economic zones · boundary · military presence · encroachment · contested
- conflictsargument, fight, war, battle, dispute
- territoryland, region, domain, realm, dominion
- colonial historycolonization, colonies, pilgrims, Jamestown, Plymouth
- colonialismcolony, colonization, colonial rule, colonial powers, colonizer
- international lawinternational law, treaty, treaties, conventions, protocols
- Italian HistoryRome, Venice, Florence, Naples, Sicily
territorial claimsneutral ground
Unbiased meeting space
international waters · neutral zone · no man's land · demilitarized zone · commons
territorial claimsanti-imperialism
Opposition to foreign domination
self-determination · peaceful coexistence · non-intervention