A thalassocracy or thalattocracy,[1] sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire.[2] Traditional thalassocracies seldom dominate interiors, even in their home territories. Examples of this were the Phoenician states of Tyre, Sidon and Carthage; the Italian maritime republics of Venice and Genoa of the Mediterranean; the Chola dynasty of Tamil Nadu in India; the Omani Empire of Arabia; and the Austronesian empires of Srivijaya and Majapahit in Maritime Southeast Asia. Thalassocracies can thus be distinguished from traditional empires, where a state's territories, though possibly linked principally or solely by the sea lanes, generally extend into mainland interiors[3][4] in a tellurocracy ("land-based hegemony").[5]
The term thalassocracy can also simply refer to naval supremacy, in either military or commercial senses. The Ancient Greeks first used the word thalassocracy to describe the government of the Minoan civilization, whose power depended on its navy.[6] Herodotus distinguished sea-power from land-power and spoke of the need to counter the Phoenician thalassocracy by developing a Greek "empire of the sea".[7]
Its realization and ideological construct is called maritimism (as in the case of the Estado Novo), contrasting continentalism.
^
Alpers, Edward A. (2013). The Indian Ocean in World History. New Oxford World History. Oxford University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0199929948. Retrieved 2016-02-06. Portugal's was in every sense a seaborne empire or thalassocracy.
^P. M. Holt; Ann K. S. Lambton; Bernard Lewis (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. Cambridge University Press. pp. 129–. ISBN 978-0-521-29137-8.
^Barbara Watson Andaya; Leonard Y. Andaya (2015). A History of Early Modern Southeast Asia, 1400–1830. Cambridge University Press. pp. 159–. ISBN 978-0-521-88992-6.
^Lukic, Rénéo; Brint, Michael, eds. (2001). Culture, politics, and nationalism in the age of globalization. Ashgate. p. 103. ISBN 978-0754614364. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
^
D. Abulafia, "Thalassocracies", in P. Horden – S. Kinoshita (eds.), A Companion to Mediterranean History, Oxford, 2014, pp. 139–153, here 139–140.
^A. Momigliano, "Sea-Power in Greek Thought", The Classical Review, May 1944, 1–7.
A thalassocracy or thalattocracy, sometimes also maritime empire, is a state with primarily maritime realms, an empire at sea, or a seaborne empire. Traditional...
Tongan king, ʻAhoʻeitu, Tonga grew into a regional power. It was a thalassocracy that conquered and controlled unprecedented swathes of the Pacific,...
land expansion occurs. Tellurocracy is conceived of as an antonym to thalassocracy. Most states display an amalgam of tellurocratic and thalassocratic...
Kannur (Cannanore) could effectively be characterised as a Muslim thalassocracy, acknowledging that the religious identity of the Ali Rajas had a significant...
in classical times. The word "sea-power" was intended to define his “thalassocracy.” Myres was using sea-power in a specifically British sense for the...
independence in 1578 from Brunei's influence, Sulu began to expand its thalassocracy to parts of the northern Borneo. Both the sultanates who ruled northern...
importance of sea power and Thucydides includes him in his list of thalassocracies in the Aegean. With these forces he implemented a plan to bring all...
pirates of the 18th century Jolly Roger Libertatia Republic of Salé Thalassocracy Victual Brothers Woodard, Colin (12 May 2008). The Republic of Pirates:...
Plato also wrote the myth of Atlantis as an allegory of the archetypal thalassocracy or naval power. Welliver, Warman (1977). Character, Plot and Thought...
the salt trade. In subsequent centuries, the city-state established a thalassocracy. It dominated trade on the Mediterranean Sea, including commerce between...
portal List of archipelagos List of island countries Lists of islands Thalassocracy Viti Levu is continental while some small offshore islands are oceanic...
East Malaysia, especially the coastal regions, were once part of the thalassocracy of the Sultanate of Brunei. However, most parts of the interior region...
15 August 2013. Retrieved 24 September 2021. Bilcher Bala (2005). Thalassocracy: a history of the medieval Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam. School of...
confederacy form of society centred on a royal heartland. It was a thalassocracy and did not extend its influence far beyond the coastal areas of the...
gunpowder was a revolutionary new application to warfare. Nusantaran thalassocracies made extensive use of naval power and technologies. This enabled the...
Non-self-governing territories Occupied territory Provisional government Thalassocracy Unrecognized state Government in exile Micronation Separatist movement...
size from villages to city-states) under the sovereignty of competing thalassocracies ruled by datus, wangs, rajahs, sultans or lakans. or by upland agricultural...
centuries, Venice developed into a powerful maritime empire (an Italian thalassocracy known also as repubblica marinara). In addition to Venice there were...
the rising influence of Champa caught the attention of a neighbouring thalassocracy that considered Champa as a rival, the Javanese (Javaka, probably refers...
the end of the Viking Age. This ephemeral Norse-ruled empire was a thalassocracy, its components only connected by and dependent upon the sea. The first...
its power in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of present-day eastern Spain, parts of what...
challenge the Republic of Venice, a naval power which established its thalassocracy alongside the other Italian maritime republics upon the Mediterranean...
middle of the 6th century BC. It had grown into a fully independent thalassocracy, embarking its own colonization efforts across the western Mediterranean...
Medan, a place in Indonesia. These coastal Philippine kingdoms were thalassocracies, based on trade with neighboring Asian political entities, and structured...
Marinatos, eds. The Minoan Thalassocracy: Myth and Reality (Stockholm) 1994. A summary of revived points-of-view of a Minoan thalassocracy, especially in LMI...