First of all, thanks to everyone for these datasets, which there has long been a need for. I especially appreciate that the boundary files have been separated so that land boundaries can be plotted without also repeating the coastline data.
I was disconcerted to see that the boundaries in the Caspian Sea are counted as “maritime”, unlike all the other boundaries falling in lakes (such as in the adjacent Aral Sea). I think it would be more consistent to put the Caspian boundaries in with other lake boundaries–I would also guess that, legally, the Caspian counts as “inland waters”, not part of the ocean.
You bring up a good point. When creating the Natural Earth ocean coastline I deliberated whether to include the Caspian Sea with this theme or classify it at as a lake. Because it is so big and salty and bounds multiple countries and is called a sea, I decided to include with the ocean coastline despite the fact that it is an interior water body not connected to the world ocean. I thought that a world map of the oceans would look incomplete without the Caspian Sea.
Tom
@ Dagnew: The 5 nations that border the Caspian have yet to agree on formal legal boundaries between themselves. Because Natural Earth considers the Caspian part of our “oceans” theme, we include the boundaries here as maritime boundaries and show the approximate median lines. The concept of “lake” versus “sea” is somewhat fuzzy in terms of physical geography naming conventions around the world. What is legally considered “international waters” also changes over time (note access to the Baltic and Black Seas): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_waters
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