Thalassocracy

A thalassocracy or thalattocracy (from Greek, literally "sea power") is a (powerful) country extensively associated with seas or oceans, such as regarding geography, trade, and (historical) colonialism.

Thalassocracies may be contrasted with land powers (with a land power sometimes referred to as "Tellurocracy"), such as in association with writings on geopolitics by Carl Schmitt and Alexander Dugin.

Thalassocracies may be argued to be associated with characteristics such as relatively more liberalism. Sometimes this may be argued to also apply within countries, such as in the United States regarding the East Coast and the West Coast being more liberal than the "Heartland".

There are various argued explanations for this, such as a country with many distant coastal territories being (especially historically) more difficult to control by a strong central authority, coastal regions being relatively more dependent on trade and free trade with foreign regions, and coastal regions having higher presence of foreign minorities benefiting from liberalism.