It
should be noted that these data are not complete and that
yachting centres like Tunisia, Malta, Gibraltar have unfortunately
been omitted due to lack of data at this time. However, we
believe, that the stunning overall result for Turkey will
not be affected in major due to these omisions.
Firstly,
the length of the coastlines is compared in Fig. 1.
Here
can be seen that the Turkish coastline of the Med, Aegean
and the Marmara sea, account for about 16%of the countries
in scope. It should be noted that this number will decrease
to 13% only, if the total of the Med coastlines are considered.
Thus, the subselection can be regarded as reasonably representative.
Turkey’s coastline is overpassed by the Greek and Italian
coastlines and make up a major part of the Med shores.
Next,
in Fig. 2 and 3 we regard the number of marinas and
moorings in the selection. Both distributions are rougly similar
in themselves, but drastically different to Fig 1:
A giant France (accounting for about 2% of the Med coastllines)
boosts with nearly about half of the Mediterranean leasure
facilities. France is followed by Spain and Italy with about
40% in between themselves. Remains 10% facilities for the
rest, perhaps 15% if all the missing countries of this study
are included.
Finally
an even more dramatic picture comes up when we start to compare
densities in Fig. 4 and 5. While the marina and mooring
densities are again roughly similar, we can see that the marina/
mooring density of Turkey is not much more than 1% of a towering
France.
Putting
into account the exceptional beauty and diversity of the Turkish
coastline and the hinterland, the improving infrastructure
and connectivity in particular to Central Europe, the friendly
resourcefulness of the Turkish people, I can only deduct,
that there is still a long and, hopefully, pleasent way ahead
- even considering the still unyielding attitude of the bureaucracy.
Furthermore,
whoever knows the seas and shores, can see from these few
numbers that the real competition in the Med of next the
future will be between Turkey and Croatia.
A
technical note:
The
measurement of an irregular and curving feature such as a
nation's coastal length is subject to fractal geometry, scale-dependent
and very difficult to measure, also due to effects of erosion,
tides etc. The estimates here may differ from other published
sources. Most of the coastline length was derived from the
World Vector Shoreline database at 1:250,000. Please refer
to the original source for further information on the variables
and collection methodologies. |
