Compare British Indian Ocean Territory (2006) - Arctic Ocean (2004)

Compare British Indian Ocean Territory (2006) z Arctic Ocean (2004)

	British Indian Ocean Territory (2006)	Arctic Ocean (2004)

Airports	1 (2006)	-
Airports - with paved runways	total: 1 over 3,047 m: 1 (2006)	-
Area	total: 54,400 sq km land: 60 sq km; Diego Garcia 44 sq km water: 54,340 sq km note: includes the entire Chagos Archipelago of 55 islands	total: 14.056 million sq km note: includes Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, East Siberian Sea, Greenland Sea, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Northwest Passage, and other tributary water bodies
Area - comparative	land area is about 0.3 times the size of Washington, DC	slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
Background	Established as a territory of the UK in 1965, a number of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) islands were transferred to the Seychelles when it attained independence in 1976. Subsequently, BIOT has consisted only of the six main island groups comprising the Chagos Archipelago. The largest and most southerly of the islands, Diego Garcia, contains a joint UK-US naval support facility. All of the remaining islands are uninhabited. Former agricultural workers, earlier residents in the islands, were relocated primarily to Mauritius but also to the Seychelles, between 1967 and 1973. In 2000, a British High Court ruling invalidated the local immigration order that had excluded them from the archipelago, but upheld the special military status of Diego Garcia.	The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the recently delimited Southern Ocean). The Northwest Passage (US and Canada) and Northern Sea Route (Norway and Russia) are two important seasonal waterways. A sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes circumscribes the Arctic Ocean.
Climate	tropical marine; hot, humid, moderated by trade winds	polar climate characterized by persistent cold and relatively narrow annual temperature ranges; winters characterized by continuous darkness, cold and stable weather conditions, and clear skies; summers characterized by continuous daylight, damp and foggy weather, and weak cyclones with rain or snow
Coastline	698 km	45,389 km
Country name	conventional long form: British Indian Ocean Territory conventional short form: none abbreviation: BIOT	-
Dependency status	overseas territory of the UK; administered by a commissioner, resident in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London	-
Diplomatic representation from the US	none (overseas territory of the UK)	-
Diplomatic representation in the US	none (overseas territory of the UK)	-
Disputes - international	Mauritius and Seychelles claim the Chagos Archipelago including Diego Garcia; in 2001 the former inhabitants of the Chagos Archipelago, evicted in 1965 and now residing chiefly in Mauritius, were granted UK citizenship and the right to repatriation; the UK resists the Chagossians' demand for an immediate return to the islands; repatriation is complicated by the exclusive US military lease of Diego Garcia that restricts access to the largest island in the chain;	some maritime disputes (see littoral states)
Economy - overview	All economic activity is concentrated on the largest island of Diego Garcia, where joint UK-US defense facilities are located. Construction projects and various services needed to support the military installations are done by military and contract employees from the UK, Mauritius, the Philippines, and the US. There are no industrial or agricultural activities on the islands. When the Ilois return, they plan to reestablish sugarcane production and fishing. The country makes money by selling fishing licenses and postage stamps.	Economic activity is limited to the exploitation of natural resources, including petroleum, natural gas, fish, and seals.
Electricity - consumption	NA kWh	-
Electricity - production	NA kWh; note - electricity supplied by the US military	-
Elevation extremes	lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m highest point: unnamed location on Diego Garcia 15 m	lowest point: Fram Basin -4,665 m highest point: sea level 0 m
Environment - current issues	NA	endangered marine species include walruses and whales; fragile ecosystem slow to change and slow to recover from disruptions or damage; thinning polar icepack
Executive branch	chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952) head of government: Commissioner Tony CROMBIE (since January 2004); Administrator Tony HUMPHRIES (since February 2005); note - both reside in the UK cabinet: NA elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; commissioner and administrator appointed by the monarch	-
Flag description	white with six blue wavy horizontal stripes; the flag of the UK is in the upper hoist-side quadrant; the striped section bears a palm tree and yellow crown centered on the outer half of the flag	-
Geographic coordinates	6 00 S, 71 30 E; note - Diego Garcia 7 20 S, 72 25 E	90 00 N, 0 00 E
Geography - note	archipelago of 55 islands; Diego Garcia, largest and southernmost island, occupies strategic location in central Indian Ocean; island is site of joint US-UK military facility	major chokepoint is the southern Chukchi Sea (northern access to the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait); strategic location between North America and Russia; shortest marine link between the extremes of eastern and western Russia; floating research stations operated by the US and Russia; maximum snow cover in March or April about 20 to 50 centimeters over the frozen ocean; snow cover lasts about 10 months
Irrigated land	0 sq km	-
Land boundaries	0 km	-
Land use	arable land: 0% permanent crops: 0% other: 100% (2005)	-
Legal system	the laws of the UK, where applicable, apply	-
Location	archipelago in the Indian Ocean, south of India, about one-half the way from Africa to Indonesia	body of water between Europe, Asia, and North America, mostly north of the Arctic Circle
Map references	Political Map of the World	Arctic Region
Maritime claims	territorial sea: 3 nm exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm	-
Military - note	defense is the responsibility of the UK; the US lease on Diego Garcia expires in 2016	-
Natural hazards	NA	ice islands occasionally break away from northern Ellesmere Island; icebergs calved from glaciers in western Greenland and extreme northeastern Canada; permafrost in islands; virtually ice locked from October to June; ships subject to superstructure icing from October to May
Natural resources	coconuts, fish, sugarcane	sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, oil and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales)
Population	no indigenous inhabitants note: approximately 1,200 former agricultural workers resident in the Chagos Archipelago, often referred to as Chagossians or Ilois, were relocated to Mauritius and the Seychelles in the 1960s and 1970s; in November 2000 they were granted the right of return by a British High Court ruling, though no timetable has been set; in November 2004, there were approximately 4,000 UK and US military personnel and civilian contractors living on the island of Diego Garcia (July 2006 est.)	-
Ports and harbors	-	Churchill (Canada), Murmansk (Russia), Prudhoe Bay (US)
Radio broadcast stations	AM 1, FM 2, shortwave 0 (1998)	-
Telephone system	general assessment: separate facilities for military and public needs are available domestic: all commercial telephone services are available, including connection to the Internet international: international telephone service is carried by satellite (2000)	-
Telephones - main lines in use	NA	-
Television broadcast stations	1 (1997)	-
Terrain	flat and low (most areas do not exceed two meters in elevation)	central surface covered by a perennial drifting polar icepack that averages about 3 meters in thickness, although pressure ridges may be three times that size; clockwise drift pattern in the Beaufort Gyral Stream, but nearly straight-line movement from the New Siberian Islands (Russia) to Denmark Strait (between Greenland and Iceland); the icepack is surrounded by open seas during the summer, but more than doubles in size during the winter and extends to the encircling landmasses; the ocean floor is about 50% continental shelf (highest percentage of any ocean) with the remainder a central basin interrupted by three submarine ridges (Alpha Cordillera, Nansen Cordillera, and Lomonosov Ridge)
Transportation - note	-	sparse network of air, ocean, river, and land routes; the Northwest Passage (North America) and Northern Sea Route (Eurasia) are important seasonal waterways

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