Dividing the Arctic Has Turned into a Very Diplomatic Clusterfuck

An Arctic land rush is currently underway: Nations like Canada and Russia are using science and the occasional search for a storied shipwreck to lay claim to large swathes of the Arctic ocean, and the valuable oil that lies beneath.

A new map of the Arctic, made by the International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) at Durham University, lays out the current claims for ownership of the region, as well as possible future ones, based on available data. It's a mess of overlapping boundaries and cordoned-off sections, showing just how complicated the claims have become.

Here's how the map breaks down: For the most part, the solid areas surrounding the land masses represent their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), sovereign areas that extend 200 metres past each nation's respective coasts. The shaded areas represent the maximum possible claims that could be laid by different nations.

There's a lot of very complex sea law involved in reading the map—for example, the little sliver of green stuck between Russia and Norway's EEZs is the result of a border dispute that lasted for more than 50 years—so if you want a more detailed breakdown, you can check out the IBRU's explanation here.

In the race for the Arctic so far, Russia, Norway, and Denmark have all made submissions to the UN body overseeing the divvying up of the Arctic, based on data collected from ocean surveys. Canada and the US are currently busy preparing their own. It's expected that Canada, once it files its submission, will attempt to lay claim to the North Pole itself.

The US hasn't actually ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea yet, which precludes the country from filing a claim. Still, the US is planning to build an unmanned Arctic surveillance system, if and when a design proposal is approved.

The political and economic stakes are high and rising in the Arctic, and the situation promises to only become knottier as some of the world's most powerful nations clammer for the north.